Columbo - It’s all in the game

 This was such a sad story. A really good episode, in which Colombo has to let a beautiful woman kiss him to keep investigating her… but seriously, it was a good episode, but really sad, I wanted Colombo to let her go, but he can’t, can he? That’s his job, he arrests the murderers; after all, she could have gone to the police, but instead she chose to kill him.

I’ll spoil the whole thing right away, because… well, that’s the point of me writing this blog, after all, to remind myself that I watched it. And also what I thought of it, so when I’ll forget I’ll be able to find it here :lol:

So, we see that Lauren and Nick are engaged ,but she’s also planning of killing him with another woman, a much younger woman. He lies to Lauren about why he has to leave, but the two women keep constantly in touch. After he leaves Lauren’s house, Nick meets Lisa and takes her out, then he takes her back to his apartment, where Lauren is waiting for them. She shoots Nick after taking out the light. It’s midnight. They cover his body with an electric blanket and do a few other things so make it look like it was a robbery and that his car wasn’t there until their chosen time.

At 2am Lauren asks Nick’s building manager Mr Ruddick to let her in because she forgot her keys again,so he opens the door for her and prepares to open Nick’s door as well, since he knows about the two of them. Just when they are in the corridor, Lisa shoots her gun and runs away, to give Lauren a good alibi. Indeed the body is still warm and everybody thinks he died at 2am.

Nobody knows about Lisa, nobody saw her with Nick, they were very careful, and when they need to meet once, to reassure each other, they meet in a public restroom, with nobody around. Lauren is most worried about this, but Lisa is sure that nobody knows about her and Nick - and yet Nick took her out that same night, how can they say that nobody will come forward saying he saw Nick with another woman? Not that it would matter much, probably, since they wouldn’t know who she is. Just one thing they overlooked: Nick’s telephone line. He called Lisa many times from his house - what is not clear to me is why it appears that he only called Lisa from there, and never Lauren, and yet Lauren knew the apartment well, so well that the manager opened for her, I mean, after she gave him her name he instantly opened the door for her, he must have known about them right? Well, I think that was the meaning of him having changed his number or something, when Lisa arrived so he could call her without Lauren knew about it or something… whatever.

It’s not difficult for Colombo to learn of her existence, because of the phone calls. He doesn’t yet know who she is, but he enters her apartment after she’s gone out and looks through her stuff, taking one of her pictures.

Colombo got called so early in the morning for this morning, it was still night basically, that he forgot to put on his shirt and tie, and went to work in his paajmas. Well, he changed his trousers at least :lol but this means that he had to button up his raincoat before he could approach the lady :D

He offered her some of the coffee that a cop made for him (didn’t offer her his hard-boiled egg, of course, not sure if he got to eat that or not). Lauren simply warms her hands with the coffee, without drinking it, because she’s always cold, circulation troubles. 

Colombo has nothing against her, nothing at all, only suspicions because: 1-of the fridge: the ice had all melted because someone had took out the lights, 2-the heat is on, which is odd because it was a very warm day when Nick went out, and there’s supposedly been nobody else in the apartment until the robbery-gone-wrong. And Colombo saw her warming her hands with the coffee, and she’ll admit to him the circulation problem. 3-I make this one a point although they don’t talk much about it, yet I still think it’s important. Not anywhere near proof, but nothing else is anyway. The 3rd point is the aspirin. She was hosting a big party at her house that night, and she told everyone she had a terrible headache, she went and killed Nick, and then came back among her guests saying that she took an aspiring and had some rest, and feels much better. And yet, when Colombo says he has a headache or something, she replies more than once that she doesn’t know if they have anything for it, or if there’s any aspirin in the house. Well, she should know, if she took one just the night before.

There’s a lot of pseudo-flirting between Lauren and Colombo. He needs to be near her to keep investigating her, and really has no valid reason to keep around her, while he sstarts flirting anytime he insists on talking about the murder. At first she doesn’t think him dangerous at all, but after a couple of time meeting him, she is a bit worried about what he might find. Still, she trusts that he can never find anything concrete, because he really can’t, and he knows it.

Lauren rather likes Colombo after all, because she says that he’s kind, and a good man, and makes her feel well. On the other hand, Colombo keeps up the flirting only because of his work. He does say to a friend that he thinks she’s a good person, or something, but he still keeps at it. He lets her buy him a new tie, and changes every time he has to meet her, wearing it for her. He gives her a magnificent bouquet or roses, just beautiful, nnot too much or too little, just perfect. He lets her kiss him, then he cleans his lips from all the lipstick before going back home… 

Then he has no other choice: he knows that he’ll never find proof, no matter how long he spends on it. His only chance to close this case is to have a confession. It’s obvious to anyone what is the only thing that would force her to confess: Lisa. We all saw that there was real affection there, they were worried about each other. And because of the picture he took, Colombo is sure that they know each other, because they were both near a unique chair, very distinctive. So he has the policee arrest Lisa, and treat her harshly. He calls Lauren to watch, and he doesn’t have to do anything else, really. At this point, she just makes sure of a few points: that he needs a confession, and that he would not make her suffer if she gave him that confession. So he agrees, he goes and lets Lisa go, telling her to go back to Europe and stay there. She thanks him and goes.

Lauren wrote her confession, and now she answers all his questions: the lights and the heat, and the shooting it was her. The car and fake robbery: it was her accomplice, a man that she will not name, of course. 

But then Colombo asks her about the girl, and everything comes out. Lisa is her daughter. In Italy she met Nick and they started a relationship. After he heard that she had a rich mother, he came here and seduced her to get at her money. But Lauren wrote about him to Lisa, and they understood that it was the same man. Lisa came here and confronted him, gaining his anger. He gave her a nasty looking scar where neck meets shoulder - we saw that, and therefore we all knew that his words of love meant nothing. 

Lauren says that Nick hurt Lisa and threatened her life if she interfered again, but Lisa went to her anyway. So Lauren took him out of the picture, and killed him. 

Nick was a sh*t excuse of a man, and I was not sorry about his fate, I was more touched by Lauren’s story, and also by the fact that keeping Lisa out of it, she was giving up her best and only defence. Without the other woman, the daughter with a scar on her neck, what else could be her motive? Nothing that might move a jury. 

Good episode,but sad.

Lauren was Faye Dunaway

Lisa was Claudia Christian

P.s. I love that, other than the tie, when Lauren sent him a gift it was for his dog ;) I also love that she was smarter than his usual murderers,she never tried to come up with answers to his questions, she never offerred to solve it for him, she never tried to blame it all on someone else… of course she faked a robbery, but that meant unknown people that would nevere be found, not some specific innocent person.

ITA donne pericolose per il tenente Colombo