Murder, she wrote - season 4

ep 1 - A fashionable way to die - Jessica is in Paris to meet her fashion-stylist friend Eva Taylor. When later Eva's business associate is killed, Jessica investigates to clear her friend's position. That French inspector was funny, calling Jessica ' his Mr Watson' :lol: and at the end, having her pay half of the bill :lol:  and by the way, it wasn't a date, I don't see why he should have payed for her as well :-)
ep 2 - When thieves fall out - At Cabot Cove, Jessica is at coach Kevin's retirement party. Andrew Durbin comes to town after spending twenty years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, and it was clear that the coach should have been involved. After a car accident, he saw that man had lots of money and he killed him for it, letting another man pay for it. I kind of liked this Andrew, and I think this time Jessica was very unfair. He went to her house to say goodbye and thank her for finding the truth, but she was very cold, told him he shouldn't have, that he knew that coming back here would have brought trouble... well, it wasn't him that killed that man twenty years ago, and it wasn't him that killed Bill this time ! Bill tried to protect himself and the killer, and got killed himself. It was a dreadful thing, but it wasn't Andrew's fault. Just because Jessica knew Bill since he was one of her students, doesn't mean that she has to blame it on Andrew, just because he's a stranger to her. Kevin was her friend alright, but he was also a killer, a cold-blooded murderer who planned to kill Bill, one of his players... She so often shows some kind of inappropriate sympathy for murderers, and now she's so reproachful towards Andrew. That really disappointed me.
ep 3 - Witness for the defence - Jessica is called to Quebec because six months ago the wife of her friend James died in a fire, and now James is on trial, accused of murdering her. His lawyer attacks Jessica in court after she had surprisingly been called to testify by the prosecutor: he tells them of the fact that in her so called respectable family her niece Victoria had been arrested for murder, just like her niece Tracy, and her nephew Grady was arrested twice! :lol: true.
ep 4 - Old habits die hard - Jessica is in a convent, don't know in which city, to visit a friend from college, now Mother Superior. When a nun is found dead, Jessica insists with the Bishop to keep looking, until she can prove she did not commit suicide, but was killed by a woman who wanted to hide the secret of her husband infidelity of fifteen years ago.
ep 5 - The way to dusty death - The chairman of a company has invited Jessica plus some people who want his job or his company for the weekend. Two of them plan to kill him, but someone else gets to him first. They'll have to deal with two very determined women :-)
ep 6 - It runs in the family - In England, Emma McGill is invited to the house of a Viscount, a Jeffrey she knew when she was nineteen, and he plans on restarting the romance, but he dies during a picnic between the two of them only. The inspector doesn't suspect Emma, instead uses her help to identify the killer; again, I don't like that kind of sympathy for a murderer, only because she's crying. A lot of people have difficult lives, difficulties due to loss of money, or affections, or consideration, or recognition, but they don't all turn up murderers!
Anyway, I like Emma a lot, with her red hair and her colourful joyful dresses, and her big laugh :-) And the fact that Emma was reading Jessica's books, and also named her 'my cousin Jessica' :-) lovely touch :-)
ep 7 - If it's Thursday, it must be Beverly - A woman apparently killed herself, and she always left the back door unlocked because she said it was such a boring town, nothing could possibly happen... didn't she see the past episodes?? Things have already happened, alright! :lol: This was a funny episode anyway, where it turned out that the deputy sheriff had a different lady for each day of the week :lol: he even gave Jessica a massage :-) but the death of his wife had nothing to do with it. As luck wanted it, she had bought the winning ticket of a lottery and everyone knew which number it was, and the mailman tried to steal it and she caught him in the act.
ep 8 - Steal me a story - Jessica is dragged into a tv show because they wanted to steal ideas from her books. When a producer is killed with a bomb, she stays to find out the murderer. At the end, the network producer offers her a weekly series on "the Jessica Fletcher stories", and she refuses, saying that's the worst idea she's ever heard :lol:
ep 9 - Trouble in Eden - Jessica's friend Mary Rose asks her to go to Eden, Oregon with her to investigate the death of her sister Charlotte. When MaryRose is almost run down by a car, Jessica goes in her place, to find that Charlotte owned a hotel used by some girls to 'entertain' men, and she also blackmailed some people in town. She finds the murderer and reports back to MaryRose. The funniest thing was the face she made after thirty-thirtyfive minutes, when it was found out that she was Jessica Fletcher! :lol: Priceless.
ep 10 - Indian giver - A young stranger turns up at Cabot Cove saying that in the 18th century his ancestor, an indian chief, was granted that land forever, and so now it's his. When a man is killed, he's the favourite suspect, what with him being 1° stranger, 2° indian, and 3° disrupting their comfortable routine. Obviously it was more than was necessary to turn your usual stupids, idiots, ignorants, hypocrates barbarics, and for them to hunt him down and beat him up. Being this a family show, we only saw the result of that in his face, and it wasn't all that bad, as it should have looked. Gosh how I hate these things, and yet they're the most realistic part of the show. People are like that, only too happy to pick on someone weaker and call themselves heroes: well let me tell you this: anyone who call themselves heroes are no such thing!
Anyway, Jessica finds everything out, and the only nasty thing was the attempt to make Mr Longbow look guilty; aside from that, I'm not sorry that guy was killed: anyone beating a girl or in this case his own wife is nothing but a weak coward.
ep 11 - Doom with a view - Jessica is in New York to stay with her nephew Grady, at his friend's hotel. Later on, he finds the body of a girl he knew and of course he's suspected! Again! :lol: Too bad his friend Gary, or Gareth, or something like that, was not the killer, he was so unpleasant! I liked his wife much more, although her character was designed almost as unpleasant as his, and yet she was a Lady. On the other hand, I liked that Mark, and was sorry that he was the bad guy. I imagined that much the moment the camera paid so much attention to his flower, for whatever reason, I didn't quite follow all the explaining at the end.
ep 12 - Who threw the barbitals in Mrs Fletcher's chowder? - After leaving her husband, Vinnie comes from Kentucky to stay with her big brother Amos (Tom Bosley)! Her husband Elmo comes to take her back followed by all his family: sister Flo and her husband, plus his half-brother. Not wanting to stay in the same house (and we can all understand that!!) Vinnie goes to Seth's house to spend the night, then after having finished her book, Jessica invites everyone to her house, prepares a good dinner, with loabsters and chowder. At the end, Elmo dies for too much barbitals put in his chowder! Meanwhile, Amos hires a girl as his deputy sheriff, and she helps out quite a lot, actually saving Jessica at the end!
ep 13 - Harbinger of death - Three years ago Jessica was at Leonard's wedding and now she's come to celebrate his anniversary. He's married to Jessica's niece Carrie, now gone to her aunt Edna. Leonard takes her to a conference party but they soon left after he has a fight with his boss, and he goes back to work! Hardly polite, isn't it? It doesn't matter that she says she doesn't mind, she was there only because he invited her, and now he spends all his time working, ignoring her, leaving her alone. That's not at all polite to me!
When a man is killed, both Leonard and Carrie are suspects; he actually confessed to protect her. Fortunately for her, aunt Jessica is there to protect her :-)
ep 14 - Curse of the Daanav - Richard Hazzlit is Dr Seth's rich brother. Years ago Richard married Molly, and Seth ran away because of that. When Seth met Ruth he was still unable to make a move, and she went, and he remained a bachelor. After the two brothers make peace, Richard is killed by his new young wife's father! Meanwhile the Lt in charge of the investigation remains convinced Jessica's some kind of important federal agent on supersecret undercover missions :lol: Kabir Bedi plays the indian man who was almost framed for the murder :-)
ep 15 - Morning among the Wisterias - Eugene is a playwriter friend of Jessica. Todd (Matt McCoy) is his nephew married to Crystal. Eugene offers Jessica a marriage of convenience (!) because he's dying, he says. Then later is found near a murdered man with a gun in his hand. Police captain Walker Thorne (Rene Auberjonois), homocide division, at first suspects him of course, but then Jessica finds out that Eugene has been slowly poisoned, and puts into place a little farce to force the murderer's hands: they announce that they'll get married the next day! So the murderer tries to finish him off that same night! :-)
ep 16 - Murder through the looking glass - Jessica is the guest speaker at the New England Booksellers Association. She's going out just when a car crashes and the man driving it mistakes her for a priest and confesses to her to have killed a man that very night. She becomes involved in some sort of international intrigue: Secret agents protecting a Colombian 'comandante' and his loyal servant, and internal affairs investigating them. Federals or not, they're as happy to jump at easy conclusions as Amos usually is! They don't look very bright, it's up to Jessica to uncover the traitor... I mean, after all Amos is a small town sheriff, but these people.. secret agents are supposed to be among the best there is!
ep 17 - A very good year for murder - this was an episode I liked very much :-)
Jessica is at Salvatore's (Eli Wallach)  house for his 75th birthday. At first I thought they were in South Italy, when this Marco (John Saxon) talked to her about 'compleanno' and 'tarantella' , but then they started talking about Paul playing football at school, so it was clear they had to be in America, somewhere. The family simply came from Italy, and they say very few words in Italian, and I'm happy to say they pronounce them well. :-) When Marco's other son Toni has a minor accident and Jessica suspects foul play, and the chief of police asks her what she thinks of it, it's funny how she always acts surprised: she's always all 'Me? what can I know , I'm not an investigator' and such things ...
When the daughter Michelle's friend is found dead, things get interesting. He was a professional killer, and when Jessica starts investigating Salvatore throws her out, but she doesn't go away; she knows he poisoned him to protect his family, and then he also poisons himself in front of her, thinking his death will bring the family together. They all call immediately for help, and they save him, but since he only has a few months to live anyway, they won't charge him with anything. His attempt, however, really does bring the family together, and I'm glad of it. I liked them very much. This has been one of my favourite episodes, full of damn good actors and nice people, for once.
ep 18 - Benedict Arnold slipped here - After a woman named Tilly Adams dies in her bed, some people can't wait to get their hands on all the antiques in her house. When one of them is found murdered, Jessica finds out the secret of the house! Unfortunately for the murderer, it wasn't as he thought an important document, proving that Benedict Arnold acted under George Washington's orders, it was simply a testimony that Benedict Arnold was a cheater along with being the traitor.Amos (Tom Bosley) knew he was.
ep 19 - Just another fish story - In New York, Grady is about to get married to Donna, another accountant. He wants his aunt Jessica to invest in a restaurant, but one of the owners gets killed. Donna just tried to defend herself after he attacked her, so she grabbed a frozen fish, hit him with it and he fell badly. At the end, Grady and Donna work out their problems, so the marriage should keep on well :-)
ep 20 - Showdown in Saskatchewan - Jessica goes to visit Jill because her mother Louise is worried about her, so she goes to valuate the situation. She meets her boyfriend Marty there in Queensbridge. I didn't like him at all, how could Jill be so silly! Well I suppose it's harder when you're the one involved, isn't it? It's always easier to see it from outside, I know. Anyway, at least he was just a cheater, not a murderer. The escaped criminal was his friend... and he used the same method used in Ncis season 2 :-)
ep 21 - Deadpan - Elliott Easterbrook (Dean Stockwell) is interviewing Jessica because one of her books, "Murder comes to Maine" has been adapted for a Broadway play, written by Walter, an ex-student of hers.
When critic O'Mara is killed, he's found with the gun in his hand, right after he said compromising things about him, like 'someone has to silence him, permanently". Funny thing, it was all his plan, and he actually did it, two hours before :) and he was betrayed by one stupid mistake, using the wrong actor's name. What was stupid about it is that nobody noticed it, not the actors, not the producer, nobody! Absurd. The funny part is how they talked about that computer and floppy disk as extraordinary technolog! :lol:  Oh the 80s...
I like Dean Stockwell because I remember him in Quantum Leap, I liked him there very much.
ep 22 - The body politic - Kathleen, Jessica's friend, is in politics, but her husband murders a man to end her career and stop the press digging into his business.