The mysterious affair at Styles Court by Agatha Christie

 

Hastings writes about what happened in “the Styles case” after being asked to by Poirot and by the family too. Back from the front, he had a month’s sick leave. He’s 30 now, if this John Cavendish is 45 and “a good 15 years his senior”. As a boy Hasstings had spent a lot of time in Cavedish’s mother’s place in Essex: Styles. They meet now and Cavendish invites him at Styles. His mother is well and remarried. She’s actually his step-mother who inherited everything when his father died. He’s a barrister and his younger brother a doctor, but neither works now. She gives them an allowance. She married 20-years youngere Alfred and there is also Cynthia, the orphan daughter of an old friend of hers. Evie is her factotum, Mary is John’s wife. 

During their first conversation, Hasting admits he’d always liked the idea of being a detective since he “came across a man in Belgium once, a very famous detective”. He says “he was a marvellous little fellow. He used to say that all good detective work was a mere matter of method. My system is based on his. Though of course I have progressed rather further. He was a funny little man, a great dandy, but wonderfully clever”.

When Evie Howard has words with Emily Inglethorpe about her husband being “a bad lot”, she decides to leave, but not before warning Hastings of watching after her dear Emily, because she says that not only Alfred, but everyone there is after her money. One day, outside the post office, Hastings meets Poirot again after years not seeing each other. Mrs Inglethorp, in her many charities, has given “hospitality to seven of my countrypeople”, refugees from the war. He’s got a bad limp, and lives in a house with the other Belgians. 

At night they all wake up, knowing that Emily was ill but unable to help because her door was locked. Alfred is not there. Together they bring down the door and find her convulsing on the bed, until she stops, dead. Dr Bauerstein tries CPR but to no avail. Hastings writes that “I have a certain talent for deduction” …no comment there.

The doctor suspects poison, so Hastings runs to ask for Poirot’s help.  

They all hated Alfred so when the housemaid speaks of a quarrel, she’s sure it was between Emily and Alfred, even if she never saw him or heard his voice. Someone else states for sure Alfred bought some strychnine the day before the murder, but he denies that, just as he denies having a quarrel with his wife. Hastings of course is all against him, he’s the common man, who sees what people want him to see and judges based on sympathies. Or beauty. For he can never think ill of a friend or a pretty girl and if she’s very very pretty than he can’t think at all.

Poirot proves that Alfred did not buy the poison, but it was someone with a big beard and big glasses like him. When John is arrested, Hastings is shocked, but the evidence will not be enough to convict him. Finally Poirot shares the solution: there was only a narcotic in her cocoa, put there by Mary thinking she’d find proof of her husband’s infidelity in her papers while she slept. There was no poison in the coffee, she didn’t even drin it. No, someone altered her own medicine, which contained strychnine, to make it lethal. It was Alfred with Evelyn’s help. He did not defend himself because he wanted to be arrested at once when he could have disproved all the false evidence against himself that he had planted, and once acquitted he could never be tried again for the same crime. 

Alfred and Evie are cousins, that’s how Emily met him, and they planned it together, that’s why she was so vocal in her ‘hatred’ of him and insisted on him being arrested at once. 

Lawrence was afraid Cynthia had something to do with it, that’s why he insisted on the natural causes. Now they are happily together, in love. 

Poirot let John’s trial go on because it brought him back with his wife, whose true feelings showed in her fierce defense of him. Hastings is left all alone: two beautiful women “and neither of them is for you” as Poirot puts it. Give it time Hastings…

Once again, one of Christie’s tactics, her clues that I like so much how she does it because we see it all but don’t always notice. In the same room, Poirot straightened out some objects while lost in thought, as he often does, and later on he did it again, meaning that someone had moved those items in the meantime!

Columbo - The most crucial game

 A good episode, I liked to see Colombo in this, listening to the football match, hunting for new shoes, dealing with a private investigator or with a girl who thought he was a ‘client’…

The murder case itself wasn’t really all that much, especially because I still don’t know why he did it… not really, the guy was a real pain but murder… I’m not sure. 

Details: 

Paul Hanlon knew Eric’s father, and because of that after the man died he took the reins of everything and managed it all with success. It’s something to do with sports, managing teams, football and apparently also  basketball. Maybe more, I don’t know. Anyway, I guess that after Eric’s death he would be even more in control, since Eric’s widow seems to trust this Paul completely.  Maybe that’s enough of a reason.

So, Paul is at the stadium for a game, and when he calls the coach he sounds angry, says he wants to talk, but the game’s starting and he has to wait. Then he changes into a vendor’s outfit, goes out the servant’s exit, takes a ice-cream truck and drives to Eric’s house. Eric just had a wild night, since the wife’s away he liked to party with girls…

Paul calls him from a phone booth, saying he is still at the game, using a radio to ‘prove it’. Then he shows up at Eric’s house much earlier than expected, of course. Eric is still in the swimming pool, he comes up to talk to him and Paul strikes him with a big piece of ice. Then he runs away, and is back in his office for the end of first time, when the coach comes to talk to him, but he’s got nothing to say now.

It’s a Sunday, and everyone’s pretty annoyed to be there, even Colombo wanted to listen to the radio to follow the game. Everyone seems satisfied to call it an accident, like Eric took a dive but hit his head, or something. Still, Colombo can always spot a murder. (Ok, one thing I don’t see how it could be: Paul sprayed water to cancel his own tracks, literally, but how could Colombo find that water without Chlorine? I mean, those that went down, got mixed with the pool water, and those that didn’t go down either evaporated from the sun or got really low to the ground, how could he ‘taste it’ to prove it had no chlorine? I missed something here, I guess.

Anyway, there’s the detail of the water, then a child said she saw the ice-cream truck who didn’t give her any and drove away, and in that area there should be no truck of that company. Most of all I think it’s Paul’s attitude that make Colombo suspicious, like he lowers the radio volume for everything but anytime he mentions something like ‘it’s murder, not an accident’ or stuff like that, he switches the radio off. 

Anyway, for whatever reason Colombo is sure it’s him, but the alibi holds… Then Colombo waits for the private investigator to show up, knowing there was one because he had found the bugs, he knew Eric’s phones where bugged. Colombo took the guy’s license and stuff, wanting informations out of him. Then it comes out that Paul’s phones were bugged too, by Eric’s lawyer who wanted to show them that Paul was not to be trusted, but Eric’s wife does and gets angry at him instead. 

Because of that, there’s recordings of all their calls, and there’s also the call that he made from the public phone, saying that he was at the game… and Colombo keeps listening to it over and over trying to find something wrong to prove that Paul was not at the game at all…until he realises what he’s looking for. Not something that’s in it, but something that is NOT in it. Had Paul been at the game, at that same hour there should have been the sound of the clock that is behind him in his ‘office’ or whatever, at the game. But it wasn’t there. Busted.

Now, I don’t really see why, was he on the phone at precisely 1430? I thought it was 1420 or something, and he sure didn’t speak for ten minutes, it was one or two tops.

Anyway:

The shoes: Colombo ruined his shoes in the swimming pool, so he had to buy a new pair. For a while he looks at other men’s shoes, asking where they bought theirs, then he wears new ones who hurt his feet, and finally a better pair (it’s another pair or the same one that is no more that stiff? Boh)

The P.I. Colombo was rather in his element here, he didn’t have to pretend to be overly deferential towards the suspects or others, he could put things as they were and treat things as it suited him, such as keeping the guy’s stuff until he got all the informations he wanted.

The girl: the PI told Colombo that he used a girl to bugged both Paul and Eric’s phone, he had her go work for Paul and because of that she had access to Eric’s place too. After three days she got fired though. Colombo goes to talk to her, who thinks he’s the ‘client’ she was waiting for, until he manages to explain that he’s not. She appears to have no time at all to talk to him, though, since her real client appears, but he leaves right away as soon as Colombo reveals he’s with the police. She’s right pissed about it, and the more she gets angry the more she reveals her true accent, so he understand she must be that girl that kept calling Paul that day right after the death. Colombo knows that someone as sly as Paul might very well get  her immediately, and so he did, but he bought her silence. He knew about the phones being bugged and used it to his defense by making that phone call, knowing it’d be recorded.

Curious detail: sometimes, in the curiosities around the internet, you can read that Colombo said he had a cousin, or a sister-in-law… he very very often speaks about his family, but I don’t think everything’s to be taken so literally, sometimes he invests stuff just to talk and see people’s reaction or to get them to talk to him… In this episode he says that his wife is angry at the ice-cream trucks that drive around just before lunch spoiling the child’s appetite… what child? He never spoke about children before (or after, in other episodes I mean). The only sure thing is that he has a wife, but everything else has to be taken in with more than a grain of salt. Remember when that girl asked him if he really had that … relative (was it a cousin, niece or whatever… ) and he said that he did, but that it was just a little girl or something. It was the last scene in Dead Weight I think. 

Columbo - Etude in black

 It was nice, it didn’t have enough Colombo for my tastes, but it was nice. It’s just that he didn’t have much to work on… until the end.

More details, it’s the story of orchestra maestro Alex Benedict who is about to record an important concert. He sneaks out to go see his lover, pianist Jenifer (they wrote it like that, with one ‘n’). He planned it ahead, he left gloves and everything in his car and left the car at his mechanic’s, and then he entered through the restroom’s door that he had left open beforehand, took his car and drove to Jenifer’s house. She sort of gave him an ultimatum, she doesn’t want to be a secret anymore, she wants him to leave his wife and choose her, she says that he doesn’t need his wife and her mother’s money or good name, he’s enough by himself, and she wants to force him to realize that… the silly girl, between leaving his wife or  letting her make a scandal, he chooses the third way, to kill her to shut her up. He hits her on the head, then puts her on the floor where he opens the oven and the gas, to make it look like a suicide. He also puts a note on her typewriter… and then he goes back for his concert (well, so well dressed, and running like that, and he doesn’t even sweat…)

When of course Jenifer doesn’t show up for the concert, he plays it angry, calls her at home knowing the number by heart (which makes his wife suspicious, but he waves it away as nothing) and then tells his assistant to inform the police and call another pianist in her place. 

During the concert he notices that he doesn’t have his flower anymore, he always wore a flower on his jacket during concerts, but this time it fell when he was at Jenifer’s house… so as soon as he hears that she’s been found dead, after the concert, he goes there and sees it on the floor. Here he does a stupid thing, he puts it on his jacket, and when Colombo sees the gesture he says that he picked it up after it fell… I think he should have put it in his pocket, but good for Colombo that he didn’t. 

There are many little things, but by themselves they can’t be counted as proof, or at least not proof against him… like: Jenifer’s parrot died from the gas, she should have given the parrot to her neighbour, that she let him die is really hard to believe; the note was clearly put in the typewriter after being taken out, because the letters don’t match (it always happened with those typewriter, if you put a paper already written, it was really difficult, maybe impossible to get it exactly right to be able to write over it). Also, his car has been used, Colombo checked the kms and is sure of it, but it could have been someone working at the garage, they say they didn’t, but it could be… 

Many little things that point to murder instead of suicide, but that also make Colombo think that Alex did it, but he can’t find proof. Until he realizes that the concert has been recorded, not just shown once on tv. There is a recording, so now he can prove that Alex didn’t have the flower during the concert, and then Colombo saw him pick one up at Jenifer’s house. Also, when he got out of there, there were journalists outside asking him questions about the tragedy… so there’s a recording that shows that he did have the flower when he got out of her house. Alex tries to lie, to say that he was in shock and maybe he took one of the flowers that his wife is always bringing to his dressing room, but when Colombo asks her she denies it, she says that he did not, and that she could have ignored a lot of things, but not murder. He tells her that he did it but only because she wanted to ruin them, and he wouldn’t let her, that it was only a fling, it was nothing. He’s busted now, and doesn’t resist arrest. 

P.s. this is the first appearance of the dog, he says he just got it at the city dog pound. 

Columbo - Blueprint for murder

 Nice, really nice. I liked it. I liked the side character of Goldie a lot, and everything about Colombo, and even the second wife Jennifer was nice. Of course, the male characters, both murder and victim, were not so nice, but that’s rather normal, murderers are never nice people.  

PLOT details: Markham is a famous architect, and he has the ambition to build a whole new block that he will call Williamson City, by the name of the man who finances him. Actually Beau Williamson knows nothing about it, but his second wife Jennifer does, sh oh so admires Markham, she thinks he’s a genius, and she approved everything about his project and gave him the money to start the process. Beau was abroad, but now he’s back and as soon as he learns about it he storms into Markham’s office in a fury, then goes to the building site where everyone can see how angry he is. Markham tries to calm him down, but Beau tells him that he will not pay for it, and to not even think about getting his hands on his money after his death, because Jennifer won’t get the money, the bank will have the job of administering all of it and giving Jennifer the profits or something… I don’t know if he was thinking about his health, or about a strange light in Markham’s eyes, when he said it.

So, Markham follows him to some place where Beau was looking at one of his horses, and then Markham shows himself and kills him, even if we don’t see the actual kill. We see Markham going to his home though, and taking stuff clearly to pretend that Beau has gone away on his own. 

Next thing we know, Colombo shows up looking for a Mrs Williamson who called the police. Jennifer knows nothing about it, she’s sure Beau is away for work, but Goldie knows better. She’s the first wife, married for 22 years. Beau remarried a woman much younger, but they were still friends, and he always called her when he went away.  Colombo doesn’t know what to say, Jennifer is totally calm, Markham says Beau is always traveling, and Goldie says he’s dead… but then Beau’s car is found. At the airport, as if he flew away. But Colombo notices that the car is full of music tapes of country/folk music, but the radio is set on classical music… and sure enough Markham’s office is full of classical music LPs.

Beau also had an appointment with his doctor concerning his pacemaker… all things that seem to agree with Goldie’s suspicions. Then Colombo finds out about that clause about the money going to the bank if he dies. He is sure now that Beau is dead and Markham killed him, but has no proof and no body. 

It’s Markham himself that tells Colombo to dig at the building site and see for himself if he did hide the corpse there, and so Colombo really goes to the offices that regulate all that bureaucracy to get all the permits he needs to do exactly that. It takes a long time, he has to stand in line many times, many queues try his patience… but he is a patient man, no doubt about that.

He gets all the papers done, and they start digging; Markham is there to play angry and mock him, the journalists are there because Markham called them, and Goldie is there for support, sure that Colombo will find Beau’s body… but Colombo doesn’t, there’s nothing there and he looks subdued and defeated.

That night Markham goes to get Beau’s body from where it was hidden, because the next morning it will all get filled with cement again, so he can’t wait, this is his chance to get rid of the body for good. 

But Colombo is there, at the building site, waiting for him because he knew that’s what he was waiting for, and Colombo needed him to get the body because he had no idea where it could be. Now that they have the body in Markham’s car, they can arrest him.

Columbo - Ransom for a dead man

 The second pilot. I liked the first one better,  but this one was ok too . The ending was a bit disappointing, maybe, if you’ve seen so many stories as I have, but not too bad because after all it is coherent with the character, it is believable that she might act like that. It may seem stupid, but maybe not from her point of view…

In order, the whole plot:

Leslie kills her husband with a small gun as soon as he gets home, then she loads his body in the truck of his car and dumps it down a cliff. She has prepared everything to make it look like a ransom. She tells a friend to call her the next day at a specific hour and say just one thing to remind her of their tennis appointment, so that the next day after the friend ends the call, she stays on the phone and pretends that it was some stranger saying they kidnapped her husband. A police squad is alerted immediately, and they gather at her house, waiting for their call. Colombo is there only to tell them the police found the man’s car… they know that already (a phone call from the police, so once again, what’s he doing there?). He’s their local police liaison, which seems rather weird since he’s a lieutenant, a detective… they don’t expect him to do anything, because they’re the experts on kidnappings…and so Colombo follows everything from the side, observing… An envelope arrived with the mail, aerial maps of where she should fly a plane and drop a bag with the money, then the phone call, that we see is automatic from a very advanced telephone, that can be programmed to make a certain call at a certain hour. She programmed it by using pieces of a tape… I have no idea what kind of tape it is, because it said things like I’m busted, they want 300.000$… she cuts the ‘busted’ bit and keeps the rest. Then she refuses their bag saying she already has one ready, and uses her own - a white bag, she has two identical white bags - When nobody’s looking she switches the bags and then flies away. The police follow and all, but her plan goes well for her, she throws out an empty bag then comes bag, and takes the bag with the money home. Colombo goes to check, but she’s gone already. He already feels something’s wrong with it all. Most of all the fact that when she received the call, and it was her husband’s voice saying that ‘they want 300.000’, she never asked anything. Really, nothing. No ‘how are you?’, no ‘are you hurt?’ Or whatever, she never asked about him or what they could have done to him. Nobody else seems concerned by this, but it’s important, what worried wife, or person in general, would not need to know if the loved one was ok?

Shortly after the body is found, and it’s officially a case for Colombo now. Especially because he already thinks it’s murder, not a ransom case. 

There’s lots of little things that make him sure of it, like the use of a small gun so that it would not pass the other side and touch the walls, or the fact that the ‘guys’ took the moey but left the bag, or the trajectory of the bullet, because they can tell that he was standing while the murderer was seated down, which is quite unusual if he really was the kidnapped, right? And yet Colombo doesn’t have one single proof.

Leslie is a famous lawyer, good at her job. Right after the ‘ransom delivery’ she sees that Margareth came home from Switzerland. She’s the man’s daughter, Leslie is the second wife after the first died. Margareth and Leslie do not get along, and Leslie hoped to be able to send her away quickly, but the girl is stubborn and stays around. 

Colombo is good at billiard too :) and is already really fond of chilli with crackers. Margareth comes to talk to him (how she knew he was there is not known…) and tells him she suspects Leslie, because she never loved him. She married him because she wanted his connections, his good name to help her career, so they opened a law firm together, but lately Margaret’s father had talked to her, told her that Leslie admitted she never loved him and found him boring, I think she wanted him to leave the firm to her, she had already convinced him to do what she wanted in the past, but this time he refuses. 

Colombo tells Margaret they haven’t found her dad’s car keys anywhere, so she pretends to find her, yelling that Leslie murdered him, but Colombo stops her, saying he knows those aren’t the right keys, and that they weren’t there before… 

And then Leslie comes home to find Margaret waiting for her with a gun in her hand, she even shoots her, like it happened that night… luckily for her Margaret only shoots blanks. As soon as she feels sure of that, Leslie tries to get her, and chases her around the whole house… until Margaret finally tells her that she (Leslie) used her bank account to get the ransom, and now she wants back what it her due… so Leslie thinks she wants to make a deal. That’s rather common for lawyers, to reach a deal and close the case. So they bargain a bit for a price, and Leslie accepts to give her25 or 30.000 cash ‘but only if she flies away the next day’, which means that she has to find the money that same night. Margaret accepts and packs her bag to go back to Switzerland. Colombo is at the airport and they talk, after Margaret’s gone. Leslie thinks Colombo is on some other case, because this one he couldn’t solve and so he got assigned to something else… until Colombo tells her that she almost got away with it, but he thought long and hard and realized that the only way to prove it would have been to get her to take the ransom money. Given her character, she didn’t find anything strange with Margaret wanting to make a deal. She didn’t find it suspicious, she just wanted her gone from her life. So much that she took that money and gave it to her (well, she put it in a case that Margaret was supposed to bring with her to Switzerland and put in a bank). But Colombo took that case instead, checked that it contained the money, and then had her arrested.

Colombo’s dedication to his work can be seen from the fact that he goes willingly on a plane ride with her, only because he wants to observe her and asks a few questions… it’s not at all pleasant for the poor man, she even does a bit of turning upside down, and then goes as far as giving him the reins, so to speak. She says she’ll teach him how to pilot a plane, and the poor man has to do something… he’ll be very glad to have his feet back on the ground.

P.S. The Italian version was terrible, sorry but it was the wrong voice, I felt like De Niro was behind the corner, it was not right for the character. It also changed for the last scene… a disaster.

ITA Riscatto per un uomo morto

The misterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie

 A collection of short stories featuring this Mr Quin. Some are nice, some are really bitter, but all are very peculiar, and every one of them has Mr Satterthwaite as the main lead. Quin is often there, or sometimes appears just for a little while. It’s like at first he taught Satterthwaite how to look at things, so that later he can do it himself. 

Quin is rather a supernatural figure, like a messenger from the dead.

1. The coming of Mr Quin (è arrivato il signor Quin).

New year’s eve. A few guests at the Royston. Mr Satterthwaite likes to watch people. Mr Portal, who is a bundle of nerves, and his Australian wife, interest him a lot. The owner of the place, Evesham, knew Derek Capel who took his own life in his room right there, ten years before. Nobody knew why. All of a sudden there’s a knock at the door. Harley Quin says it’ll take his driver a half hour to fix the car, so he’ll wait insideee. It’s Quin himself who brings up Capel in the conversation. He adds that it is not impossible to find out why he did it. Everybody says what they can remember: Capel said he was engaged but could not name her yet. It happened a short time before Mrs Appleton went on trial, accused of murdering her husband, but there was no proof against her. Also, a few months after Mr Appleton’s death. They remember two more things: there was some news in the newspaper, about an order to dig up Appleton’s bodyto check for poison, and they didn’t have to call the police because the local policeman was already in, just arrived to bring news of a beloved dog found half-buried in the snow. Still, the people there are no more close to the solution than they were before. Mr Portal is more and more nervous, and Mrs Portal eavesdrop from the shadows, with her natural-blond hair died black. Quin points out that they have all the facts right there. Capel engaged to a woman whose name could not yet be revealed, a murder case, and then the newspaper. Capel reads that three days before Appleton’s body had been exhumed then from his room’s window he sees a policeman. So he kills himself. Poor Mrs Appleton was left with all the suspicions on her. She went away, moved to Australia, changed her hair color and tried to start a new life, but suspicions were always on her. Now Mr Portal apologises to his wife for the doubts that had kept on plaguing him, and she confesses she would have killed herself if things hadn’t changed because she couldn’t take it anymore.

2. The shadow on the glass (l’ombra sul vetro)

Ten sheets of paper and we have the whole story, before during and after the tragedy. We meet again Mr Satterthwaite among the guests of the Scotts in a house said to be haunted, in the way that there’s always the shadow of a man on a window glass, no matter how many times it gets changed, sooner or later the image reappears. The guests important to the story are Richard Scott the adventurer (that’s what they called an Englishman who went to Africa to shoot animals for sport), his wife Moira that he met at Cairo, Major John Porter, great friend and companion of Scott in his ‘adventures’, Iris Staverton and Captain Jimmy Allenson. It’s not clear what happened with Iris, it’s apparently awkward for her to be invited with the Scotts, I only understand that there was something once between her and Richard but it’s been over for a long time. I guess this might be reason enough for some people. The captain was in Egypt last winter and is a young man all smiles. Moira is only 20, and beautiful. It’s not long beore things get tragic. Two shots are heard, Moira and Allenson are found dead, Iris has the gun in her hand, says she just picked it up. The police is all for arresting her when mr Quin arrives. He had some business appointment, but when Mr Satterthwaite hears his name, he’s eager for him to be let in and consulted. He says that Quin has the power to show you what you yourself saw and make you understand it. Indeed, he hears what they say and also asks what’s on their minds. Satterthwaite is thinking of poor Moira with a bloody ear, but the earring was so small it could not have caused it, it’s more like a gunshot caused that injury. That makes them think  they died of just one shot. If they were hugging each other, it would work alright. Then they learn the ‘haunted’ window glass had been changed in the early morning, but they saw the ghost-man: there’s a secret passage in that room, and Richard used it. He saw the couple, got insanely jealous, put a hat at the window, went down and shot them. Iris was never jealous of Scott, she is in love with Porter, very much requited. 

3. At the Bells and Motley (all’insegna del giullare)

By coincidence, Mr Satterthwaite’s car breaks down in the village where Mr Quin is, just for the night, and also where three months ago a man disappeared. They talk about it together at the local Inn and come to the conclusion that it was all a scam done by a family of robbers, a mother with a son and daughter. The girl played the rich art lover who bought a house and filled it with art. The boy played the guy that marries her. But he also played the old gardener who had terrible pains, as his wife (played by the mother) could testify. So at some point, right after the quick marriage, the man disappeared, the last one to see him was ‘the gardener’. The heartbroken wife sold the house and everything in it to an American and disappeared. The gardener and his wife found job in another town somewhere. Now Mr Satterthwaite wants to give this theory to the police to prove it, so that there will be no more suspicions on a local young man who had been fired, and he will finally be able to marry the Innkeeper’s daughter. 

4. The sign in the sky (la nube fatale)

Young Martitn has been found guilty of murdering Mrs Barnaby, but Mr Satterthwaite is not convinced. He finds Quin at his usul table at the restaurant. He tells everything he knows. Young and passionate Vivien married sir George, old and boring. Martin had a farm not too far from their house. She seduced him, but then after a while he fell in love with Sylvia and wanted to put a stop to their affair. Vivien wrote to him, set a date at her house to talk it out. That night she was found dead, shot. Everything accused Martin, everyone else had an alibi for the time of death. Everyone testified, but one gilr. Louisa left for Canada, and now Satterthwaite wonders why. So he sails for Canada to talk to her. One thing is for sure, sir George wanted her out of England, he even arranged for her a very good salary so she would leave immediately. There must be a reason. To get that, Satterthwaite needs to talk to Quin. Louise saw the train arrive shortly before she heard the shot, which means it could not have happened when they said it happened - because that line is rather precise, apparently, and is impossible that the train arrived ten minutes early. So, if she heard the 18:28 train, then when the butler said it was 18:20 it’s because the clocks were all on the wrong time, because sir George set them so. At this point it’s obvious George did it, having found out about her obsession with Martin. Quin suggests talking to Martin’s girlfriend, Sylvia. Sylvia goes to talk to sir George and manages to get a signed confession out of him.

5. The soul of the croupier (anche i croupier amano)

Satterthwaite is in Monaco, France. He is unsettled because of the stories around him, he doesn’tl ike what he sees but can’t do anything about it, until he meets Quin again. Quin puts together a little group of people that will sort it out. There are young Americans Franklin and Elizabeth. She loves him, but he’s fascinated by countess Czarnova with her adventourous life. Then there is Pierre the croupier, that that same night gave to the countess what was rightfully Satterthwaite’s win. At some point, he tells his story, of how he had a big future and an arranged marriage, until one day he met a starving girl. He married her; his family was angry. He wanted her to be grateful though, so she became distant and they argued until she left. She came back some time later with rich clothes and jewels, but he played it cold, not wanting to give her the satisfaction. She got angry, told him she hated him and left. Years later, he found work as a croupier until he met her again. He could tell her jewels were fake, she sold them because she was broke. That night she had lost the last money she had, so he gave the win to her. When she asks why, he says pity, so she burns the money and walks away. Pierre admires her fire, calls her magnificent, and runs after her. Franklin stays with Elizabeth, happy to see an American face. Someone he can understand. Satterthwaite is glad the two couples have settled themselves. Sort of.

6. The world’s end (alla fine del mondo)

Satterthwaite goes to Corsica because a duchess wants him to go along, and Corsica is cheaper than France, apparently. There they meet Naomi, a talented artist but a depressed girl. They go on a trip, and after a rather bumpy ride, Naomi leads them to a place she calls ‘the end of the world’. They meet Harley Quin there. When it starts snowing, they all move inside the local Inn, or whatever, and meet theatre producer Vyse and also Rosina Nunn the famous actress with her husband. It was her that accused Alec of theft, the year before, because he stole her beloved opal. He’s been in prison all this time. Now an Indian doctor who joined them for the trip, shows them the secret of the Indian box she has with her. With a little manipulation, it makes things disappear. She didn’t know that. When he shows them how to make them reappear, there they see her opal! So they understand that Alec didn’t steal anything after all. Alec was Naomi’s boyfriedn. She was so desperate without him, she had planned a car ‘accident’ to end it, but now she’s happy. Quin leaves.

7. The voice in the dark (una voce nel buio)

Satterthwaite is given a ‘mission’ by lady Stranleigh, to help her daughter. Margery, daughter of one of her four ex-husbands. Margery hears a voice at night, demanding she gives back what she stole, and Margery is sure it’s real, she has even a small injury to prove it. Satterthwaite meets Quin on the train and talks to him, telling him of how Barbara Starleigh became rich. She and her sister Beatrice were poor, but then there were three sudden deaths, then the ship she was on sank and Beatrice drowned. So when old Starleigh died, there was nobody else and she got it all, title and money. Things become more serious when Barbara goes to visit her daughter and is found dead in her bathtub, drowned. Satterthwaite comes to see Margery writing her will, sure she’ll be next. But now he can see the full name of her maid, Alice Clayton.While remembering those days for Mr Quin, he had recalled the young maid he once kissed, and she looked nothing like the Clayton in the house. So he understands. Alice drowned, but Beatrice only got a bad concussion and couldn’t remember who she was. Barbara took her chance, told her she was the maid, so she could inherit. Beatrice was the older sister, it would have all gone to her. Still, things end there because they find Beatrice/Clayton dead in her room by a heart attack.

8. The face of Helen (il volto di Elena)

The title means that this girl, Gillian, has a face so beautiful that is can cause tragedies. It already got her troubles in the past. Now it could do it again. Satterthwaite meets Quin at the Opera, but they part ways before anything happens. Satterthwaite saw a beautiful girl, Gillian, with a face so beautiful he never thought he’d see one like her, like Elena or Cleopatra. He drives her home, when her ‘friend’ Philip starts a fist fight with another friend of hers, Charlie. When she later tells Philip she got engaged to Charlie, he seems to take it well, but Satterthwaite can’t believe it. It doesn’t seem Philip’s nature at all. After he has a talk with Philip, he understands the plan and hurries to Gillian’s house. She was home alone listening to the radio. When the tenor singing will reach a particularly high note, a very fragile glass that he gave to her will break and what’s inside will kill whoever breathes it. He arrives on time and pulls her out of the house. The cat that sneaked inside will die there. Not sure how long they waited, or how could they know when it’d be safe to go in, we’re not told any of that, but we see Satterthwaite meeting Philip again, telling him everything. A few minutes later, a noise is heard, like someone throwing himself in the river, suicide.

9. The dead Harlequin (L’Arlecchino morto)

Everything starts with a painting with that title, the dead Harlequin; Satterthwaite buys it because the man in the painting looking in the room with the dead body, he looks a lot like Mr Quin. Later on, two women express their desire to buy it from him. He had been discussing the death that happened in that house, so easily recognizable in the painting. The two women now are both in his house, and so is Mr Quin, all of a sudden. Satterthwaite recalls what happens, lady Alix Charnley says her husband shot himself because he got a maid pregnant and the girl Monica Ford would have told his wife and maybe others. But Satterthwaite is fixed on the painting, with the man seeing everything and looking like Mr Quin; so he doesn’t believe that story. The painting shows a big room with the body and a small carpet. Everybody thought Reggie Charnley shot himself in the small room where the carpet had always been before. Satterthwaite deduces/guesses the truth: Reggie was killed earlier, in the big room, then two people moved the body to the other room and covered the blood with the rug. Then one put on wig and costume and pretended to be Reggie while Monica Ford called him iwth that name to make everyone believe it. Once locked inside the small room, the man shot at a wall or something. It is said many duels happened in that room, so it would not be noticed. The man hid so people entering only saw the dead body. The other woman in the room is actress Aspasia Glen, who 14 years before was Monica Ford. The man she helped as Hugo Charnley, the next male heir who hoped to inherit everything, but he didn’t know lady Charnley was pregnant, and the baby was born a boy, so Hugo got nothing after all. Now Aspasia blames Quin, says he saw it all, but they won’t ever catch her, she’s a great actress and will never be found.

10. The bird with the broken wing (L’uccello con l’ala spezzata)

Satterthwaite refused an invitation from Madge Keeley, but then some guys doing a seance receive a message: it’s for Satterthwaite, and it’s one word only, the place where he was invited to : Laidell. He immediately changes his mind and goes. Madge is a nice girl who just gott secretly engaged to Roger Graham. Her father David had a brilliant mind, but he always got unnoticed. Doris and Mrs Graham plus Mabelle Annesley and her husband Gerard. Mabelle strucks Satterthwaite as enchanting, unreal, makes him think of a bird with a broken wing. Mabelle has a sad family history: a brother died of suicide, another during an earthquake and a sister drowned. Mabelle met a man in the woods before coming here, the twilight making him look like a Arlecchino. Satterthwaite thinks of Quin. Then he thinks of her walking or singing alone, and thinks she’s sad and looking for solitude, but she says she’s happy. After they dine all together, Mabelle is asked to play her ukulele and sing, then they retire for the night. Madge reminds her of taking her ukulele with her now or she’ll forget it when she’ll leave in the early morning. So she does. The next morning, Madge enters Satterthwaite room still trembling, with the news of her suicide. By hanging. He tells the police she was murdered, but they already know, the doctor told them. Satterthwaite easily finds out that Mabelle was in love with Roger, it was easy to guess, but he had decided to end it because it was wild and unreal and it scared him. His mother took their letters and burnt them. Satterthwaite doesn’t like Doris, and when she gives him a judgementl look for touching Mabelle’s ukulele, he challenges her to tune it right. She tries, and a string breaks. She says it was the wrong one, shouldn’t have been there, and he gets it. He takes it and goes to David Keeley. He accuses David of killing her, and he admits it with a crazy laugh. Nobody ever noticed him, so he decided to have some fun at their expenses. On the train back, Satterthwaite meets Quin and expresses his regret for not saving her, but Quin asks him if death is really the worst thing that could happen, and he agrees that no, for Mabelle it probably wasn’t. And she’s probably a whole bird now, with no broken wings anymore.

11. The man from the sea (L’uomo venuto dal mare)

Satterthwaite saves two lives, maybe three, in this. He’s on vacation on an island. He takes a walk around an old, beautiful house. He meets Anthony, who came there hoping to be alone so he could kill himself. The doctors gave him only six months of life left, so he wants to end it now. The night before he was stopped by a man that we know was Quin. He regrets now being so alone, and would like to have a son to leave behind something of himself. Then he wanders out of curiosity, and tries to open the window of the house, to take a look inside, but comes face to face with a woman. She tells him her story. She married at 18, she loved him until he became violent and cruel. When he drowned she was happy; it was his fault if she lost her baby too and after a while she became lonely and her desire for a baby grew. She had a fling with a man, he left soon later and she never told him, didn’t even know who he was. She raised her son John, loving him and learning to love his father through him. Now, John has a girl and wants to know everything about his father, but he’s so proud he won’t be able to accept being illegitimate, so she plans on killing herself before his arrival. Satterthwaite manages his words so that she’ll be at that window when Anthony will try to open it… and indeed that happens, and he was John’s father, and now they will get married and with all her will to live she has no intention of simply waiting for him to die, she’ll do anything to have him live. When Satterthwaite meets Quin he’s not surprised, he was waiting for him. Quin says that the other night he came here because he had a task to do. Given to him by who? Quin says that the man who died there 22 years before actually loved his wife, in some irrational way he was cruel because he loved her but couldn’t relate to her as he wanted. So maybe the dead man felt regret, wanted to make amends, and if that desire was strong enough he might be able to find a messenger… when Satterthwaite makes to leave, Quin says he’ll go back the way he came, and he moves towards the cliff, towards the sea…

12. Harlequin’s lane (il sentiero di Arlecchino)

Satterthwaite is invited at the Denham’s house. They’re not ‘his people’ but he goes anyway because intrigued by a Chinese screen in an otherwise boring room. It’s precious, worthy of a museum, in a room filled with solid, classic English furniture. Both John and Anna seem without fire. A Claude Wickham wrote some beautiful music, and a play is about to take place, with dancing and singing. When two professional dancers get injured, Anna and Quin will  dance the parts fo Colombina and Arlecchino. Anna was once a great dancer, but she gave it up for her husband, because he wanted her for himself. Now, unseen, she hears him profess his love for young Molly. The dance is beautiful, she has found the perfect, real Arlecchino. John is enchanted, but she knows it wouldn’t last. Oranoff has always loved her, the great dancer, although he hasn’t seen her in years. Instead of going with one of them, she walks what people call ‘the lover’s lane’, but is actually called Harlequin’s lane, with Quin. Only Satterthwaite can see he’s with her, so he’s the only one to understand when they found her dead in a beautiful pose. It was always said that Satterthwaite sees things others don’t see, so only him saw Quin with her. This Arlecchino, this messenger from death that this time came to take someone instead of saving him like last time. 

While the light lasts by Agatha Christie

 A collection of short stories. Not bad at all. There’s some interesting stuff in this collection. Even a couple of stories with Poirot, one simple and short, and another more interesting… it’s all very well written.

1. The house of dreams (ita.la casa dei sogni). 

I’d say it’s just an exercise in sstyle, and it is well written, but there isn’t much plot. John is Rudolf’s employee, good enough but without ambition. Rudolf’s daughter Maisie sees him and takes a fancy to him, so Rudolf invited him to dinner. John barely notices Maisie, but he immediately likes her friend Allegra, who seems so witty and full of life. He falls in love and when he sees her again he speaks to her so she knows it. She puts him down saying she’ll never marry. Right before meeting Allegra, John dreamed of a beautiful house, and compares it to her. When they talk he says the inside will be jsut as beautful as the outside. That night he dreams that inside the house there’s a horrible, disgusting thing. Maisie, understanding that he wants to see Allegra and not her, tells him that there’s a streak of madness in her family. John leaves to find fortune in Africa, and for ten years he’s afraid of seeing the house and that thing, and then he sees it again, and it’s empty. A month later, a letter informs him that Allegra died. He hadn’t dreamed of the house again. Now he’s sick, a doctor wants him to focus on fighting the sickness, but John only wants to find the house, and when he sees it, all he wants is to go in, so he lets go of everything else, doesn’thear the doctor anymore,and goes inside.

2. The actress (or A trap for the unwary). (Ita L’attrice). 

Famous actress Olga Stormer is in trouble when Jake Levitt recognizes in her Nancy Taylor who once shot a man in self-defence, but being young and scared, she fled. Jake wants to blackmail her, because blackmailing women is what he does. Olga has told everything to her politician fiancee., but he’s not the kind of person best to deal with Levitt. Olga chooses to deal with him herself, using her talent for acting and cowardry against him. He asked for a meeting, so she invites him to her house. When he arrives, the house seems empty, until he sees the body of a woman. She seems dead. He touches her, a maid comes out crying that he killed her. He wants to strangle her, but she finds a gun. So he runs, out and away, planning to disappear. The maid was Olga herself, her beautiful hair hidded in her maid outfit. The woman on the floor is her understudy, young actress Miss Ryan, who knows nothing about Nancy or Levitt. Olga talked about hypnotism with her and gave her sleeping pills. Now Miss Ryan will have a job contract, and Olga is safe… and a great actress.

3. The edge (Ita Il limite). 

Interesting. Clare is considered by everyone a good person. Everyone also thought she’d get married to her long-time friend Gerald. She did too, until he came back with a prett wife. When talking about a man who went back to drinking after promising to stay sober, she’s a little digusted by the man, but is told to not judge him so harshly because temptations can be hard, and she simply doesn’t understand.

When Clare finds out that Vivien cheats on her husband, she fights with herelf on what to do. She wants to do the right thing, so she stops her initial desire to tell everything to Gerald so he’d divorce Vivien, and says nothing. When she hears, unnoticed, some cruel words said by Vivien about her, she lets her know that she knows. Vivien panics and tells her everything about her Cyril, who dumped her for a rich woman but Vivien still loves him. Clare thinks about it then lets her know she won’t tell Gerald. From time to time, though, she makes allusions about it to see her terrified. She enjoys the power she has. With time, Vivien starts relaxing a bit because Clare has kept her mouth shut for months. When Gerald tells Clare they’ll go away for a year, and maybe enjoy a second honeymoon, Clare feels they’re slipping away from her, and she can’t have that. She immediately writes to Vivien to meet her. The walk path she chooses is called the edge and can be dangerous. Clare says she can’t stay silent anymore, she’ll tell Gerald if Vivien doesn’t tell him herself. Vivien begs her, notvbecause of Gerald that she has never really loved, but because of Cyril, that she still loves madly. This news would ruin him. His wife would divorce him and take everything from him, and Vivien can’t stand that. She says she really loves him, she’d die for him, but Clare is unmovable. She says Vivien is too cowardly to kill herself, and that’s true, but Clare also suggests an easy way to do it, just run down the path. Easy. Vivien agrees it’d be easy and she accepts, and runs down fast, smiling and waving, until she falls down to her death. Shocked, Clare yells she killed her and nobody can change her mind. People saw Vivien run by herself, laughing, so they don’t believe Clare, but from that day on she was never happy again, she lost her mind and lived like a prisoner in a cell.

4. Christmas adventure (or The adventure of the Christmas pudding) (Ita L’avventura di Natale). 

This one has Poirot in it, but it’s nothing exciting. It’s Chrismas, there’s esven plus two youngsters in the house, and some of them plan to fakea  murder to fool Poirot, but he heard them and makes his own plans. At dinner, a red stone is found in the pudding. At night/early morning, the kids call him for their charade, but then it appears Nancy is really dead; she only drank what Oscar gave her, and the only prints in the snow are Oscar’s and Nancy’s, so instead of calling the police Oscar takes the red stone and his sister and they run. Now Poirot explains his story. Nancy is not dead, just acting for him instead of them. Oscar and his sister were thieves, and Poirot had been tasked with getting the ruby back. Poirot let him take a fake stone while he has the real ruby, and now that he’s wanted, Evelys is no more bound by her promise made out of gratitude, an can marry Roger who she loves. Since it’s Cristmas, Jean throws her arms around Poirot’s neck with a “if you’d step under the mistletoe…” and we’re told Poirot had a lot of fun…

5. The Lonely God (Ita Il dio solitario). 

This is just a romantic story but written down doesn’t say all that much, really. It’d be nice if filmed, maybe, like a Christmas movie, that would probably go well.  The title refers to a small statue in the British Museum. In a room full of Gods and Idols, there’s one with no name, no description at all, all alone in a corner. Frank often goes to see it, feeling so lonely himself he feels much sympathy for what he calls his Lonely God. He starts noticing that a young woman comes to see his Lonely God twice a week, and he gets interested. She also seems to have noticed him. It takes him a while but he finds the way to approach her, by buying a handkerchief and then pretend he found it so he asked her if it was yours… that first time is short and awkward, and he doesn’t see her for ten days after that, but then she reappears and they start talking about their little lonely god, and then about themselves, and she wants to avoid names to make it more intriguing, until the day he says he loves her. She loves him too, but she can’t marry him or tell him her name, so she disappears with a note. He starts painting, then he reads the story of a princess who had everything but felt lonely, and he painted his best one, and finaly he sees her again at the Museum, she was praying to the lonely god, and indeed Frank appears. She says she wrote that story, her story, she just borrowed her maid’s clothes and then told him lots of lies and felt ashamed about that, but now they’re together and in love, and the poor little lonely god is once again alone.

6. L’oro di Manx.

This is a peculiar story, I read it in the introduction. Basically the Isle of Man decided on a treasure hunt to attract more tourists, and decided to hide the clues in a crime story, and Christie accepted to do it. This is it. Well, it’s hard to judge, becausealone like this it makes little sense, it is made just for the game. So, the sto: cousins Juan and Fenella receive a letter from their deceased uncle Myles: he found a treasure, and he wants his heirs to find it as well, not just give it to them. His only living relatives are Juan and Fenella, nephew (I think) Ewan and couin doctor Fayll. They must solve four or five riddles. The first is given to Juan and Fenella before the others. The second, Ewan stole them to cut the youngsters out, but then Fayll killed him and took them. They only have half a picture and a couple of words Ewan says before dying. Every clue, Juan and Fenella solve it and find it all. They also have the police overhear Fayll’s admission that he murdered Ewan, so he’s arrested. Now Juan and Fenella have lots of money and can get married.

7. Within a wall (Ita Entro il muro). 

Isobel was poor but had everything else, beauty, charme, education, and she could have married anyone. Instead she married for love, to rising painter Alan. He has done some excellent things, while others (like Isobel’s portrait) are lifeless. His best things come to him after talking to Jane, because in a way she makes him angry and he wants to impress her. Jane is also Winnie’s godmother, Alan’s daughter. Since Alan doesn’t makeenough money, for years Isobel has asked Jane for money. Now Jane dies, Alan discovers everything, but Isobel is unrepentant, says Jane didn’t do it for her but for him, that Jane loved him but now that she’s dead, Isobel can have Alan all to herself. She says she never made a fuss that he spent time with a woman in love with him, instead she had her give her money, and Jane was not rich at all. Now Alan belongs to Isobel alone, and she’ll have him do whatever she wants, and do portraits that he hates because it’ll make money, and he’ll become her willing slave.

8. The mystery of the Baghdad Chest. (Ita Il mistero della cassapanca di Baghdad).

A story with Poirot. A good one, I liked it. A murder case seemed close, and Poirot wasn’t interested or involved until the widow asked or his help. Mr Clayton had a drink with his friend Curtiss, then went to tell Major Rich that he had to leave and couldn’ attend his party. That night, the party went on with Rich, Mrs Clayton, Mr and Mrs Spence and Curtiss. Next morning, Rich’s butler found Clayton’s dead body inside a chest, and Rich was arrested for his murder. Rumor has it that he loved Mrs Clayton, and now she told Poirot that she loved Rich but there has never been anything between them. Poirot asks everyone questions, and he learns that the Spences danced and played with each other all night. Rich danced with Mrs Clayton while Curtiss changed the music, but they all left together, nobody stayed behind. Poirot looks at the chest and sees a few holes in the back. This of course creates a totally different scenario. Hastings doesn’t get it, he never does, but it appears clear now that happened. Between Mr Clayton’s stuff, Poirot indeed finds tools that could be used to make those holes. Now he says that Clayton made them, of course. It was quite an ingenious plan: Curtiss had a drink with him, put suspicions inside his head regarding his wife and Rich, and suggests he hide in the house, in the chesst, to be in the room and spy what they do, to finally find out if they have an affair, if they’ll be alone. Curtiss puts something in his drink. Clayton goes to Rich’s house when he knows Rich is out and hides in the chest. Then the drug makes him sleep, so he doesn’t yell when Curtiss, tasked with managing the music, right next to the chest, stabs him. It was a perfect plan, Poirot admits. And it all happened because Curtiss hoped that without Clayton and Rich around, Mrs Clayton might get interested in him. She’s one of those beautiful, innocent creatures that Poirot calls dangerous, because men do crazy things for them. Well, not FOR the, but “to have them”, like things. 

9. While the light lasts (Ita fintanto che dura la luce).

Very short. Deirdre married Tim for love, but the war killed him in 1914. They only had two months together. Even now, she wonders what their life would have been. But once alone, she married George Crozier who loved her and gave her everything. She was fond of him, not the passionate love she had for Tim, but she’s come to enjoy her peaceful and comfortable life with a rich husband who loves her. Now, out of the blue, she finds Tim again. He didn’t die, but it took him months to get well, and she had remarried. She seemed happy enough to him so he left her alone but now he wants her back. She hesitates to tell George and Tim asks her why, is she pregnant? It was such an easy excuse, she lied and said yes. Next day the man was dead, Tim shot himself. She’s shocked, of course, and will never forget him. It is not explained in clear, easy words but I’d say the reason is: she loved Tim, she missed him and had he gone back to her right away, even with a scar and no money, she would have loved him, done her best, but now it’s different because she’s had months to force herself to get over him, and she got used to her new life, this easy life where she has everything; it’s peaceful, comfortable, and she doesn’t want to leave it behind just like that… after all he didn’t even let her take some time to think on it all…

ITA La casa dei sogni

Community season 6

 This is when Shirley is gone, Jeff and Annie try to keep the school running, the Dean comes out as a Politician, Chang becomes famous then ruins it, Britta gets a job and the show ends.

1. Ladders.

One of the problems Annie and the Committee had to solve got lost and not done. The roof was full of frisbees, decades of frisbees that now break the roof and flood the school… Shirley moved to Atlanta to care for her dad, and the Dean introduces Francesca to the group. She’s there to put things right and does a lot of work quickly… at first, then all she does is write and read emails from a certain Diane, they stumbled a bit there. She’s not wrong, Britta burns all the sandwiches so they sell none, Jeff keeps drinking all the time… and then they sort of open an underground club where everybody drinks. When Frankie finds out about it, she leaves and the whole campus drinks all the time. Jeff is smug about it until Annie is hurt by a drunk teacher falling off ladders… there arae also lots of bills and stuff so they run to Frankie to apologise, and ask for her to come back. Now she gives the group stuff to do.

2. Lawnmower maintenance and postnatal care.

Britta is homeless so she’ll go live with Abed and Annie. She’s mad because her parents have been helping her fiinancially wrough her friends without her knowing it. All her friends like her parents, and would not have been able to help Britta all this time without them. The Dean buys a virtual reality system for 5000$ and Jeff and Frankie need to give it back. The Dean loves it though. Jeff gets the refund. Britta talks to Frankie and goes back home.

3. Basic crisis room decorum.

Annie learns during the night that the City College has made a derogatory ad against Greendale because it gave a degree to a dog. There are files on all classes attended by Ruffles, but no degreee. Annie is upset thinking it’s a bad school so they shoot a counter-ad meaning everyone is accepted.

4. Queer studies and advanced waxing.

The two school board guys offer the Dean a place in the board if he is openly gay. Annie and Chang get a part as Karate-kid and Miyagi: the guy is horrible to Chang, truly, but only because he thinks he can do better. Annie thought she was a talent but is fired without a second thought. Abed doesn’t want the wifi repaired until a “nest of baby birds can grow”, the Dean approves, but is forced to do something. One out of three birds survives… for a while. The Dean has a man pretending to be his boyfriend. At the end, he comes out as “a politician”. 

Chang is great in the show. 

5. Laws of robotics and party rights.

To get the school lots of money, a group of prisoners will attend school through video-attendance. A convict for murder, Willy, is a bad guy and against Jeff. When Jeff snaps, the Dean suspends him. Britta wants a party even if she just moved in. Annie said no, so Britta convinced Abed to make a film of it, and regrets it a lot. Jeff goes back into the Dean’s good graces, but the deal is off, so no money.

6. Basic email security.

The school has been hacked, demanding they cancel a show of a racist comedian. Britta uses some long and insufferable speech to convince everyone to go against the hackers and let the comedian perform. The hackers leak the group’s emails. The group fights a lot. The hackers then release all the school data, everything on everyone. It turns out it was a little kid.

7. Advanced safety features.

Ex-Subway, not Rick, is back. There’s a “dramatic rise in Guerilla marketing” as Frankie puts it. Now Rick secretly sells for Honda. To stay with Rick, Britta starts working with him to sell Honda cars. Elroy stays with them but goes away as soon as Jeff arrives. Britta and Rick have a fight, then he says he’ll  leave his job for her… but doesn’t resist and tries again to sell stuff to the Dean, and is ‘arrested’. Frankie asks what had Troy that was so special. Well, for one, Troy and Abed were funnier than Annie and Abed. They are cute, but not as funny. Elroj speaks to Julie, the singer of ‘Natalie is freezing’ about their story that ended twenty years before.

8. Intro to recycled cinema.

Chang is famous for a commercial he did. Abed has some scene he shot with Chang, and they force him to finish it and to make it a science-fiction film. They insist and Abed accepts but insists in making something good. They want something fast and it’s horrible but they do it. Still, not too useful since Chang ruins everything as usual and is back at school, with the group as if nothing happened. 

9. Grifting 101.

Threre’s a grifting class, which means to con people. Everyone but Jeff goes. They all buy suitcases and he tries to have them buy more. It was stupid of them to buy the first one! Jeff knew it. No the guy shares Jeff’s office and they do not get along because the guy Roger is so full of himself… Jeff too, sure, but Jeff is the protagonist so he can…

So the group decides to ‘grift him’. Jeff has no plan though. Everyone relies on Jeff. They watch ‘The Sting’. Roger comes ot mock them. Britta punches him and chases him, Roger falls hurting himself so the school gives him 50.000$. He planned it with Britta who got the others onboard; she distracts him and switch suitcases taking the money away. In the end, in front of our usual cop (here for a macrame class) he has to admit he was ‘grifted’ so he goes away, no money, no teaching class.

10. Baisc RV repair and palmistry.

Elroy drives his camper with everyone on board, but they run out of gas. He accepted to carry a giant hand on the roof of his van. They’re now stranded on a place somewhere. They fight because the Dean never admits his mistakes. The only one he talks to is Abed, of course. Jeff slaps Abed but Frankie talks to him the right way, so Abed saves the general harmony. We don’t know how they make it back, I guess they’ll just wait until someone is free to tow them somewhere. 

11. Modern espionage.

Vcki sings :) There’s another paitball game in the car park. Since it’s banned now, the school does it secretly. Frankie is firmly against it. There’s a mysterious Silver Man. There’s a paintball war and they all shoot each other. I don’t think the Silver Man is found…

12. Wedding videography.

Stacey accepts to marry Garrett. Annie, Britta and Frankie meet to talk and prepare for the wedding. Todd marries them. Garrett’s mom scolds them about disrupting the ceremony (she’s right). During Jeff’s speech, it comes out they were cousins: her grandma and his great-aunt are the same person. Nobody knew it. The two families want an annulment but for once Chang does a good speech and they end up staying together.. then a man says he wrote this episode on incesst… but they were only cousins, who didn’t even know it… cocme on, this is no Game of Thrones, it’s not that scandalous.

13. Emotional consequences of Broadcast television.

Last day, Annie got the internship at FBI. The group share suggestions on whata they could do on a season 7. Abed got a job or something, so he’s moving away. Jeff feels bad about it all changing and him staying put… but then he puts another group together, and pronounce them a community: Brianna the driven idealist, Kaylee the fiery one, MacKenzie the nerdy one and Hallie, the other nerdy one, plus Phoebe the wise one/nerd n.3. All women. And after that group another one will come…

Abed and Annie leave and they all hug them: Dean, Jeff, Chang and Frankie can hang out at Britta’s bar.

Community season 5

This is when Pierce is dead, Jeff is a teacher, Troy leaves, Abed is dating Rachel, and there’s someone hidden under the school.

1. Repilot.

Jeff works alone now, didn’t go to his old firm or anything like that. He has nothing. Alan comes with a new case: a bridge collapsed and its engineer is sueing Greendale for giving him that degree. Alan wants everything Greendale has on that Marvis; Jeff goes to Greendale but when the Dean ses him he thinks Jeff came to save him. The archives are in their old study room, since none of the group is there anymore. The Dean immediately called Abed (for whatever reason) and he called all the others. The Dean destroyed all documents on Marvis because he knows that the school is at fault. Well, we all know that this school gives no real education, they had fun but they could have me at any club). Jeff thinks he might get the group to sue the school instead: none of them got a job, and Shirley put all her money on her “Shirley’s sandwiches” dream and her whole family left her. The five of them (Abed, Troy, Britta, Annie and Shirley) want to enroll again. Chang is sleeping right there, he went to prison for faking the amnesia (???) and has no home. So he’s been hired as a Maths teacher, even if he does not know Maths. 

Jeff ‘beats’ Alan with Alan’s own tie, then talks to the group. They sign the paper he shows them, but repeata the choice is not theirs but his. Outside Jeff sees a hologram of Pierce (??) and he changes his mind. He goes to the Dean: “these are the signatures of the five people that are crazy enough to care about this toilet. And tonight I almost go them to sue it. Heed the warning.” - “It’s not easy being Dean, Jeffrey” - “Then stop being the Dean!” . The Dean asks for his help but can’t pay him for that so instead he hires him as a law teacher.

2. Introduction to teaching.

Jeff hates being a teacher and does not know what to teach since he never actually went to law school. Annie joins his class to see if he takes it seriously. He doesn’t, really.

Abed joins a class: “Nicholas Cage: good or bad?”. The teacher, Dramatic professor Sean Garrity, knows of Abed: “Mr Nadir drove our tv studies professor out of his mind by proving that there was an answer to the question Who’s the boss?”. Garrity tells Abed that this time there is no answer, to watch five movies as  assignment and to “be careful”. Abed doesn’t accept that easily, he goes crazy to solve that. He goes insane, like sexy-cat-on-the-teacher’s-desk crazy. He almost throws away all his movies before talking to Shirley.

3. Basic intergluteal numismatics.

This episode sees “ass crack bandit” an unknown someone who… drops coins down people’s pants? Annie and Jeff investigate, and it tuns out Star-Burns faked his death but he’s not this bandit. A the end things stop, for whatever reason, but it’s not clear who it was. Not to me anyway. Shirley says that Pierce is dead.

4. Cooperative polygraphy.

They went to Pierce’s funeral. Then Pierce’s lawyer says that by Pierce’s will they are all suspected of murdering him and must pass a polygraph. There’s a lot of confessions, shouting, and then Pierce leaves an ipod to Britta, a house or something to Shirley, a tiara to Annie, and also sperm to anyone… also he leaves millions to Troy if he goes on a solitary boat journey around the world.

5. Geothermal escapism.

To say goodbye to Troy, Abed has everyone play a game of Hot Lava giving as prize something worth 50.000$. It’s all crazy, and at the end the truth is that Abed sees real lava on the floor because he can’t let Troy go. So he lets himself go into the lava and ‘dies’, and so, knowing how Abed is, Britta and Troy come up with the idea of ‘cloning’ him, so he can come back. Troy leaves, and LeVar Burton will be with him on the boat.

6. Analysis of cork-based networking.

After Doctor Who now it’s Games of Thrones’ turn with this fantasy show “Bloodlines of conquest”. 

Annie tries to repair Greendale but it’s absurd.

7. Bondage and beta male sexuality.

Duncan wants Britta so he asks for Jeff’s advice. Abed misses Troy. Professor Hickey punishes Abed for ruining his drawings by handcuffing him to his office. Abed acts ok for a while but loses it when it’s too late to go watchi his movie. Anyway, he comes back to maybe work together on something. Britta’s old friends make her feel bad but Duncan doesn’t take advantage, he takes her home and comes back to have a drink with Jeff. 

Good.

8. App development and condiments.

The group now meets for the “save Greendale committee”. Two guys will test their new app at Greendale, as beta test. It’s simply an app where everyone rates everyone else. Soon there are no people anymore, only numbers, where 5s are masters, and 2s are like servants, and Shirley is a 5 from the start because, as Jeff says, she likes to manipulate people. Jeff signs up only to become a 5 and confront her. Abed was comfortable as a normal 3 but was soon made a 5. Britta tries to wake everyone up and to make people listen to her she smears mustard on her face. Because it works. So the people strip all 5s of their grade, back to 1, until Jeff tells everyone that the only one who won is the app, on sale with 5 stars, and that they should delete it.

9. VCR maintenance and educational publishing.

Abed is still with Rachel… only a month? Abed says they’ve been dating a month… I would have thought much more, maybe it took them a while to call it dating…

Annie’s brother comes to visit: he’s a bit slow but a good guy. Still, Abed finds him weird and when she suggests he should come live with them, Abed wants Rachel instead and they play a game to decide, without asking either of them first. Both Annie and Abed are very competitive, while Anthony and Rachel stay there, not understanding what’s going on. When it comes out, Rachel storms out. Jeff, Hickey and Shirley find a lot of brand new textbooks and decide to sell them, and call Britta to arrange a sale. Chang enters the place by chance and when they threaten him Jeff changes his mind and wants to leave, so they’re both tied up. Then Shirley ties up Britta and Hickey too, then it turns out there’s a fault in the books and can’t be sold. Anthony goes away too.

10. Advanced advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

The group plans a game of D&D to bring together Hickey and his son. The guy is very hostile, and knows what they’re doing, and doesn’t care for it.So his father challenges: if he wins the game they’ll see each other (or at least he’ll get to see his grandson), if the son Hank wins they won’t. (The teacher also has another son, gay Furio, but they do see each other so things are alright there). They are in two separate room: Hickey father is in one with Annie, Shirley and Jeff. In the other room there’s Hank with the Dean, Chang and Britta… of course Abed is the Dungeon Master. Incredibly, it’s thanks to the Dean’s persistence in being reunited with Jeff that the two groups meet again and are therefore in the same room. They fight themselves, and all their characters die but father and son. The two of them keep playing, and so they keep arguing and so talking. Everyone goes out but Abed.

11. G.I. Jeff - Government isssue Jeff.

They are all American-style cartoons, in a sort of GI Joe adventure where Jeff is the only one that kills for real (only Duncan looks like Duncan). It’s all because Jeff is in a coma and imagining it all. It’s his birthday, he turns 40 and he doesn’t want to grow old, so he bought some Korean pills somewhere that should keep him (or turn him back, not sure) young, and he took them with alcohol… he wakes up only when he realises that cartoons like that do not have sex or drink alcohol.

12. Basic story.

The “Sane Greendale Committee” think they’ve been fairly done and accomplished, when a new crisis arrives: “an insurance appraiser is coming tomorrow to inspect the school”. Jeff wants to do nothing because the school is good. He’s right, the inspection goes well, but at this point the two guys want to sell the place (who the hell are they exactly? Financers?) They want to sell it to Subway. Abed finds a hidden scroll right when Jeff and Britta had decided to get married to give their whole story a meaning… yeah, anyway. The Dean is happy about this hidden-treasure thing.

13. Basic sandwich.

A weird but rich man owned the property before he disappeared. The town took it and made it what it is now. There is a hidden trapdoor leading to his old lab, where the man is still alive because he had fod for 50 years. He is still working on that old computer with a girl’s name and knows nothing of what went on in the wordl. They find out that not only he still has lots of money there, but he also has a contract, or something, whatever, that means the school can’t be sold. So it isn’t, they’re all happy, and of course Jeff and Britta won’t get married at this point.

Columbo - Prescription: murder

 A good episode. The pilot, if I’m not mistaken. Or one of two pilots, anyway. It’s very good, no wonder the show got the thumbs up. Columbo himself is much neater, in a way, his hair is shsorter and therefore more styled, more in place, and his attire is also neater, with his close knitted tie. But he already has his raincoat, and most importantly he has all his mannerism, that way of coming back to ask just one more little thing, and the habit of writing things down and not having a pen, and most of all the fact that he never finds what he’s looking for right away, he’s always checking various pockets before he finds the right one. Columbo was our beloved Columbo already from the start.

This murder was very planned ahead, psychiatrist Ray Fleming wanted to get rid of his wife because he liked her money but he wanted a free life to do what he wanted and was tired of her. He knows Joan Hudson because she’s a patient of his, and so he’s had time to groom her to his liking, she’s in love with him, or thinks she is. I actually don’t think that’s love at all, not even on her part, but she thinks it is, because he made her think so, she’s dependent on him. Anyway, he convinces her that in order to be together they have to get rid of her, and she needs to help him. So they put things in motion to the last detail. 

Everybody knows that he’s going on a little vacation with his wife, all the way to Acapulco, and so that night he has the wife call the dry cleaners to say she’ll leave a bag outside the door for them, and then he strangles her. When a friend calls, he says they’re almost ready but she’s still changing herself. Then Joan comes and he has her wear one of Carol’s dresses, plus her gloves and big sunglasse. She took a wig at the studios where she’s working as an actress, so they’re ready to go to the airport. She’ll play the part of his wife Carol. 

He tried to make it look like it had been a robbery gone wrong, so he took a lot of silver stuff and her jewels, put them in a bag and took it to the airport. They did all the formalities and got on the plane, and then they staged an arguemen, they started arguing quite loudly and then she stormed off the plane. Both because Carol had to be home to be ‘murdered’ while he was away, but also because Joan could not disappear like that, she was working those days.

So Joan got off the plane, changed her clothes, went to his house and put the dress in the bag for the cleaners, and then got home, while he stayed a few days in Acapulco and got rid of all the things from the apartment, by throwing them at sea.

When he comes back home, he opens the door silently, and moves to look at where he left her, but Carol’s body is not there anymore, but her outline on the floor is. From the other room comes Columbo, already there, who immediately becomes suspicious because any other man, no make that every other person, would have called, wouldn’t they? He would, and I would too. But Fleming didn’t. Columbo explains what happens, and Ray is quite shock to hear Colombo say that someone ‘attempted’ to kill her… because she is indeed still alive. They go to the hospital and of course he’s eager to know what’s happening, how is she, if she can talk… at some point they say she woke up and was speaking… but then a doctor told them that she died, and the only thing she said was his name… lucky jerk.

Columbo keeps turning up here and there as is his way, but Fleming becomes tired pretty quickly and asks his lawyer friend to keep him away. So a few calls are made to switch Colombo to another case… and Ray is so smug and sure of himself that Colombo now can see that there’s no way he can catch him at fault somewhere. There’s no proof against him whatsoever, he was even out of state when it supposedly happened… so Colombo’s only chance is to look elsewhere. 

Colombo is absolutely sure that the husband is responsible, he’s sure of it as he always is at some point, in all his cases, and it’s that certainty that makes the difference, because if it was Ray who did it, then it’s obvious that he must have done it before going away, which means that Carol had to be dead already when he boarded the plane, which means that it must have been another woman playing her part… and one day, at Ray’s studio, Colombo has met Joan, come for her appointment with her ‘doctor’. Maybe Colombo got the measure of her right away, or maybe he checked and she was the only actress, or the only free that day… that’s not been explained to us, but Colombo knows that she was the accomplice, and also the weakest link, so Colombo talks to her and puts her under pressure until she cries, and he thinks he made it, but for this time she actually finds her strength and tells him nothing, says she’s got nothing to do with it… but it’s not the end, and Colombo says it clearly. He will keep at it, hounding her day after day until she’ll break and confess. It doesn’t take too long before it works. 

Some day, she doesn’t appear for her usual appointment at Ray’s office, so his secretary calls and is informed of some ‘accident’… so he rushes to her house and sees her body being taken out of the swimming pool, dead. Colombo tells him that they both killed her, but that he (Ray) has more guilt than anyone because he got her involved in all of that, and he also adds that he did it all for nothing. Yes, because he killed his wife to get the girl, but now the girl is gone, so he’s got nothing, so he could just free his conscience and confess… but Ray laughs in his face, saying he never loved her, and that IF he killed his wife then he did it for himself, not for some girl he cares nothing about… and of course Joan is alive and also right there, listening to every word they say. It was all planned to make her see the truth, so now she gives Colombo that deposition, and Ray is busted.

Great episode, and I rather liked this actress, she looked peculiar.

Community - season 4

 

This is when Britta and Troy get together, Jeff meets his father, Chang is now Kevin, and Jeff graduates.

1. History 101.

It’s their last year, and Abed is too anxious about it all and finds refuge inside his mind. After the summer courses, Jeff needs one more credit to finish school… but the history class got cancelled… craziness ensues or something. Britta and Troy are a couple and the Dean now lives next door to Jeff.

2. Paranormal parentage. 

Pierce locks himself into his panic room. They search his house looking for the code to open the door. It’s Halloween. It turns out Gilbert has been living there, taking care of Pierce. Troy doesn’t understand any reference to sex and Jeff makes a phone call to his father.

3. Conventions of space and time.

Troy and Britta watch tv in bed. They’ve been sneaking around but Abed knows they sleep together. There’s a convention of Insspector Spacetime. Troy really seems to love Abed more than Britta but she’s ok. Abed found another friend to spend time with at the convention. Troy is jealous. Annie plays Mrs Winger. Troy saves Abed when Toby locks him inside a cabin. (A red telephone box, but the blue is much cooler). Pierce ruins the shows future.

4. Alternative history of the German invasion.

Three German guys sign up for the study room so the group frame them to have it back and all the school turns against them. They make amends and get their room back. One of them, Karl, was Abed’s videogame friend. Chang is back because he apparently has amnesia.

5. Cooperative escapism in familial relations.

Jeff will spend Thanksgiving with his father. He also has a step-brother. He wants to bail out of it, but Britta is there so he goes. Jeff is much more like his father than William Jr. It’s not a nice thought. The others go to Shirley’s but her family is full of tension. They plan how to escape. Then they have a Thanksgiving lunch at the study room, with the Dean too.

6. Advanced documentary filmmaking.

Chang now calls himself Kevin. The whole school likes this new not-crazy guy. Jeff tries to prove that he’s faking it but fails.

7. Economics of Marine Biology.

The school tries to get rich Archie to join their college, and does it without losing its identity. Jeff really enjoys going to the barber with Pierce.

8. Herstory of dance.

The Dean throws a ball and Britta another, at the two ends of the same Hall. Annie and Shirley find a girl each for Abed, so he changes outfit a lot ging from one to the other and talking to Rachel, the girl in the closet room who accepts to help him. They have a lot of fun but then Rachel goes away when he doesn’t understand so he looks for her. Cute.

9. Intro to felt surrogacy.

They all went on a trip on a hot-air balloon, but they lose their guide and are lost in the woods and accept berries from an unknown stranger. While high they reveal secrets to each other. All of it as singing muppets.

10. Intro to knots.

It’s Christmas at Jeff’s place. No Pierce but there’s Chang. Since they failed history Annie invited the professor too. It was actually a C-, meaning they passed, but after hearing Jeff’s words the prof changed it to F. Chang/Kevin ties him up, then the prof offers an A to whoever will free him, and more. He makes them all one against the others, but it’s not very successful. They get a C+ for everyone. The Dean enters to give a kitten to each one of them. Chang talks on the phone of getting them expelled.

11. Basic human anatomy.

It’s Troy and Britta’s anniversary but they didn’t even remember. Troy though remembers that it’s been three years since he watched Freaky Friday with Abed… Troy and Abed then…exchange bodies, so Troy (Abed) breaks up with Britta while Abed (Troy) explains it to Jeff then they exchange again. So real Troy can talk face to face with Britta. They go back to being friends.  Leonard is top of the school, before Annie and Shirley…   While they were out Pierce did all the assignment.

12. Heroic origins.

We see now that Chang is plotting with the City College’s Dean. They recall past events after Abed makes them aware that their path crossed before. Also they were all at the same place when the Dean and Chang gave fliers away. So Abed goes to thank Chang and tell him he’s “one of us”. So Chang goes back on his plan with City Dean.

13. Advanced introduction to finality.

Jeff graduates. He was scared to turn back into his old self but after a battle with his evil self in his mind, all is well.

The end. This was very short.

Community season 3

 

This is when Troy, Abed and Annie start living together, Britta loves her psych tests, Shirley gets married again, Pierce’s father dies, Chang kidnaps the Dean and takes control, and air conditioning is a very very serious thing…

1. Biology 101.

It starts with the whole school singing, musical style. Pierce is back. Dr Kane teaches biology, their new class, and he kicks Jeff out. He goes insane, like wielding-an-axe crazy. Then Star-Burns is out, so I guess there will be a spot for Jeff again. Chang is hired as security for food and board.

2. Geography of global conflict.

There’s a student, Annie Kim; our Annie feels very competitive and then she breaks down. Abed comes out with a concept of aliens htat make her win. Britta misses her times of protests and Chang wants to be a real cop. So they help each other.

3. Competitive ecology.

The group members insis to pair together for the biology assignments, but soon realise they want to change. They’re seven, so the eighth is Todd. Chang goes crazy imagining himself a detective. The group comes together again by blaming all their fights on poor Todd.

4. Remedial chaos theory.

Troy and Abed now live together. The group goes to visit them at their house. It starts a play of parallel realities. 

5. Horror fiction in seven spooky steps.

Britta thinks the psych test she had the group fill in for her psychology test means there’s a dangerous psycopath in the group. It’s Halloween, they all tell a macabre/silly story, then realise Britta checked the tests wrong so they check again and it turns out six of them are crazy and only Abed is normal.

6. Advanced gay.

Pierce is upset to discover that Hawthorne Wipes are something of a gay icon, but he’s all for it when he realises that they raise his wipes selling a lot. Then his horrible father comes to school. Pierce cancels the gay party but Jeff doesn’t. Troy is torn between the guys who want him to be a plumber and Vice Dean (John Goodman) who lures him into the air conditioning high life…

The party is great, Pierce is having fun too until his father shows up. Jeff verbally attacks the man until he has a heart attack and obviouslyhe thinks he’s faking it, it was him who taught Pierce to do it after all. The man dies, and Pierce is not really heartbroken.

7. Studies in modern movement.

Annie leaves her old flat to go live with Troy and Abed. Pierce stays behind to repair a little something and destroys her old flat. In her new place they don’t even have a real bedroom for her, only a blanket fot, and she despairs. They are nice, but she can’t accept it when she sees they have an empty room for their mind games. They argue sos they make her a real bedroom. Jeff said he was sick to avoid helping them, but then the Dean meets him while shopping and blackmails him into having dinner and karaoke with him.

8. Documentary filmmaking: redux.

The Dean asks them to star in a school commercial. Not Abed Nadir, no, he will make a documentary instead. Jeff plays the part of the Dean: funny, but he plots to have his scenes cancelled. Instead not only they have permission to use Luis Guzman’s image, but the man offers to star in it himself. In the days before his arrival, the Dean goes insane, totally insane. When Luis arrives, there’s nobody. Only the Dean and Abed. The Dean is still insane. Luis tells him that he (as in the Dean hiself) is ashamed of his school. The Dean does feel ashamed, now, of himself, and makes a self-flagellating video but when he shows it to… those who pay, it’s another video altogether, one actually good and the guys love it. Abed had a hand in it, of course. The Dean begs for forgiveness, and the group accepts that and Jeff hugs him and the others too. Britta and Troy hug each other instead.

9. Foosball and nocturnal vigilantism.

Jeff is annoyed by three guys loudly playing foosball, and when he wants to stop them the German guys are not nice to him but really, jeff started it. When he’s loud it’s ok, if others do it it’s not? We now have two confessions of both Jeff and Shirley once loving the game but stopping because of sort-of traumatic experience, which is also the same one, it was Shirley at 12 who bullied him when he was 10. Well, in one game only, but now they make peace. Annie panics because she broke Abd and Troy’s  super-exclusive DVD; she stages a robbery but eventully confesses the truth… to Batman. Abed takes his costumes very seriously.

10. Regional holiday music.

Jeff did an anonymous call to stop the Glee Club because he hates it. Abed wanted to spend Christmas with them but they all had ther plans, so Abed gets it in his head to convince the group to help Mr Radison by making the Glee show. Abed easily convinces Troy, then a song gets Pierce, then Annie, then she sings in a sexy Santa costume to Jeff, while Pierce brings a bunch of children to sing for Shirley and Britta. Shirley is won, and somehow Britta is too. So they do the Christmas show, but Abed is not overjoyed to learn that after that the regionals will come and then many more, many many more. So Abed sabotages the show by having Britta sing the Prince’s part instead of him. Mr Radison goes mad and basically says it was him who killed the first Glee club members. The whole group shows up at Abed’s house to spend Christmas together.

11. Urban matrimony and the sandwich arts.

André surprises Shirley with a song and show at school to ask her to marry him again. Britta and Jeff do not like even the idea of marriage. Pierce was fired from Hawthorne wipes, so he asks Shirley to start a business together. Britta is very good at organizing wedding stuff, liket he flowers. Shirley is so into their business that she’s late for the wedding rehearsal and when she arrives André is angry and they fight and she walks away but they talk and make peace, and get married right away. Jeff and Shirley make a drunk scene, Abed and Troy play ‘normal’ almost the entire time.

12. Contemporary impressionists.

Back after New Year. Jeff has a new shrink who gave him pills to stop anxiety. Abed is using actors to enact movie scenes for real at school. He owes the man 3000$ and is offered to pay it all by having the group do a ‘show’ or something. The guys are against it. I understand Jeff, fighting against his ego for some reason, but not Annie. Anyway, Troy is angry at them: “it’s not our job to help Abed grow up. Abed doesn’t need reality. Abed is a magical, elflike man who makes us all more magical by being near us” . nice.

They have to play impersonators, and Troy is worried because if things don’t go well the guy will send men to break Abed’s legs. Troy panics all night. Jeff eventually loses it and acts like Hulk, but it ends well for Troy. The debt is paid, but Troy is upset that Abed keeps calling new actors so he tells him clearly that he can’t keep doing that and must trust him to tell him what to do, sometimes. I’m not sure Abed knows how to deal with that.

13. Digital exploration of interior design.

There’s a guy named Subway and Annie going to sleep studies. jeff learns only now that students have lockers. He has two-years worth of letters, even a hate letter from Kim. He searches for her and a guy tells him that she died two weeks ago, Jeff will have no chance to convince her he’s not a jerk. Actually, the guy is Kim, and now it’s Annie who gets angry that Jeff apologises to a guy but was eager for it had Kim been a girl.

Shirley wants Britta to bring down Subway and his sandwich company or whatever, but she falls for him instead. Pierce spys on her (and also drinks ink for some reason). Because of Pierce’s recording, Subway goes back to being Rick and is taken away. 

Vice Dean has a school on how to repair air-conditioners, apparently. Didn’t know that. He speaks to Troy and later to Abed too, to bring discord between them. They were to build a pillow fort together but then Troy left to build his own blanket fort, to beat the current world record, one of them must leave space to the other. At first Abed unhappily accepts to destroy his pillow fort, but then refuses and it’s almost war between the two factions.

14. Pillows and blankets.

News reports on the terrible war between the blanket fort and the pillow fort, aka “the legit Republic of Blanketsburg” & “the United Forts of Pillowtown”. Britta takes pictures, Jeff makes speeches to both forts to avoid school tests. Pierce covers himself in pillows to beat the children in Chang’s team. Troy and Abed say hurtful things and end their friendship. After two days of the school fighting, the Dean says it’s over because nobody from the world records will come and everybody leaves. Jeff puts two virtual friednship hats on Troy and Abed’s heads and they’re friends again.

15. Origins of vampire mythology.

Britta’s ex boyfriend Blade will join the school carnival and she goes mad worrying that she’llsleep with him again and regret it. Vice Dean enrolls the Dean’ help to convince Troy to enroll “in the air conditioning repair program”. It doesn’t work. Britta asks Annie’s help in keeping her away from Blade. Jeff goes mad in trying to understand what’s so irresistible about this Blade. Something about an accident to the head causing him to have no shame… mah. Pierce and Chang walk the carnival as friends until Chang walks away.

16. Virtual systems analysis.

Annie sends Troy and Britta to dine together, alone. She stays home to play with Abed, in the Dreamatorium. It’s not easy at first but they like each other and it all goes well.

17. Basic lupine urology.

“The goofballs that run around stirring up trouble and the eggheads that make a big deal out of it”, an episode Law&Order style. The group’s biology program is broken and they start an investigation on it. At the end they learn that Star-Burns died when the drugs lab in his car exploded.

18. Course listing unavailable.

Britta wants to counsel the group after Star-Burns death. Also professor Kane resigned; biology class therefore is cancelled and they’ll need to work during the summer for more credits. Jeff goes insane about this “remedial biology” business. He starts a hate-riot against the school. Chang’s team of children stops it by pepper-spraying anyone. Then they plan to blame it all on Chang to the Board Council or something. So Chang charms the Council and replaces the Dean with a look alike. The group is expelled.

19. Curriculum unavailable.

Two months later. They’re all together. Abed is forced to go to therapy. He doesn’t want to, neither do they. The whole group goes with him and honestly they look much crazier than Abed. Still, the psychiatrist says Abed should be committed to a mental hospital. They talk of all the craziness going on at that school, and then also the times when the Dean favoured them. Abed has been telling them this whole time the real Dean could never expel them because he loved them. The Doc says that Greendale was never a school, but an asylum. He lied, he’s not even a real doctor, and now he confesses that Chang kidnapped the Dean.

20. Digital estate planning.

Pierce’s father left a videogame he created for Pierce and his friends, or something like that. Anyway, they all play the game because who wins will get the inheritance. The guy Gilbert plays too. The rest is all of them, playing this Mario-style-game, trying to win. It turns out Gilbert is the dead man’s son too. Abed stays behind with a game character, Hilda, and builds castles and enough babies to build armies. Abed savves this Hilda character in a pendrive. 

The man was a real… no word for him, disgusting, for being his son Pierce is normal enough. 

21. The first Chang dynasty.

They plan on how to rescue the Dean from Chang’s school. He has lots of children guards. A big operation and all together they rescue the Dean… but are all trapped. To escape, Troy accepts to join the AC repair program.

22. Introduction to finality.

The contract with Subway is over and they’ll take Shirley’s sandwiches. Britta acts as Abed’s therapist, but he can’t live with Troy being gone so he lets evil-Abed take over. Shirley and Pierce go to mock-court where the Dean acts as judge. Still, Pierce called a real lawyer: Alan. At he end, they make peace having Jeff sign for them a their lawyer. The Vice Dean is murdered by the guy who wants to become the new Vice Dean. Troy uncovers it all, has him taken to the police and joins his friends again after having changed the rules because he’s the AC guy’s Messiah………