Colombo - The greenhouse jungle

 I liked this episode, but only for Colombo, because he was especially funny and adorable. The other characters were not very likable. Entertaining enough, though. The idea is that this Cathy likes to spend too much money and has a lover that she doesn’t even hide, she likes to do what she wants without hiding or caring what other people think. Her husband Tony would like to have more money to keep her and not lose her. So he’s more than happy to agree with his uncle Jarvis and stage a kidnapping. The reason: there is a trust fund for him, I think from an inheritance, and this would be such an emergency that the bank would give them the money.

This being a kidnapping case, Colombo shouldn’t even be there, and they know it because thay have other cops ask why is he there, but he doesn’t reply. Even before they knew there had been a kidnapping, what they knew was that a car went offroad but there was no body, so again, why was Colombo there? A lieutenant? A homicide detective? 

At the beginning Tony is alive and they’re staging it all. The phone call to Cathy didn’t worry her too much, but she started to get concerned. It’s evident from the start how Jarvis doesn’t like her and keeps saying to her face that she spends too much. Then we see Jarvis and Tony together, when Jarvis shoots the car and they push it down the cliff to stage the kidnapping.

^_^ so funny how Colombo looks at sergeant Wilson, because the guy has been in town only six days so far, and this is the first time they meet. Colombo, poor guy, should walk down the cliff to see the car, but instead he falls and rolls down the cliff… Wilson keeps talking, everything is perfectly clear to him, exactly how Jarvis wanted it, but Colombo always looks deeper. Finally Colombo has to ask him who he is :lol: amd they’re supposed to work together. Colombo looks quite happy to hear that their captain highly praised him. Flattery aside, Colombo is very kind and patient, as he always is. The nicest things about him: that he’s not satisfied with arresting just anybody, and that he is always nice. 

When he goes to talk to Tony’s wife, he quickly guesses about the ransom because she refused to tell him anything, she lied because a letter told her to not get the police involved. Jarvis has no problem, however, in telling him the facts so far. They talk of the trust fund, the only way for them to raise 300.000 dollars, and then Jarvis makes the delivery. To Tony, of course, with a stocking on his face. Once it’s all done and they’re alone again, Jarvis shoots Tony, despising his weak character and his willingness to use a lot of that money for his wife. 

Jarvis and Colombo meets at hos solarium, where he tends to his precious orchids. Then Colombo sees he has a billiard-table and plays a bit, with a certain style :) Next, Gloria West, the blonde secretary that Cathy thought was Tony’s lover but it actually seems like Tony liked to talk to her, tells Colombo that Tony had talked of some money he was about tonget his hands on, and that he had talked to Cathy’s lover and agreed on 50.000 as his price to go away and leave her. Cathy is always rather blunt and aggressive(or defensive, depending on your point of view) but Colombo tells her he likes her, because she’s no hypocrite, and then he tells her the bit about the 50.000… 

When we see Gloria calling Jarvis after Colombo left, we think she might blackmail him and end up dead, and so does Jarvis himself when they talk, only to change his mind when it appears that Gloria suspects Cathy instead, because Tony told her she has a gun. After this, Jarvis wants to have her arrested. They both have a gun of the same calibre. Jarvis’ gun was used in the crime, Cathy’s gun wasn’t, and was always kept in a drawer in her bedroom. Jarvis goes at night, puts his own gun amongst her shoes, then takes her gun away. He gives that gun to Wilson to ‘prove his innocence’. 

I’m not too sure now why Wilson is so sure of Cathy’s guilt that he wants to search her house again, but anyway Colombo tells him to go ahead and he happily does. Of course he finds the gun and arrest her.

Meanwhile, Colombo has been busy in the solarium. With a metal detector, one of the modern things Wilson loves, he found a bullet in the earth and had it analyzed. He also has Wilson come back with Cathy before they reach the station. Wilson doesn’t understand, so he explains. We know that some time ago, someone entered the solarium, a thief, and Jarvis shot once or twice to make him to away, and now Colombo has that bullet, that was of course from his own gun, the one that shot Tony. 

Wilson arrests Jarvis instead. Cathy is shocked and relieved, and gladly accepts Colombo’s offer to take her home.