Columbo - Slapping, Wrist Acting & a Subtle Legend

Erica. You're a New Yorker, I am you are. Forget about it. I'm walking here perfect exactly. There is sometimes in New York a car will drive by and that car will be blasting music. Right, yeah, happens, part of the experience, part of part of the fabric that makes up this great melting pot. I'm mixing metaphors. That is our set. Right. If you live in Washington Heights, that's basically the soundtrack of your life is a car blasting Salcea music. Yeah. So I'm walking down the

street yesterday and I hear a car coming that's blasting music. And this doesn't really bother me because I've just lived here for so long I don't don't even notice it. And then I realize in my life there has been hot aching pain. Oh my god, oh my god. Yes, that's right. Foreigner is blaring out of these windows. And I just had to turn around and there is a i'm gonna say, a sixty year old black man in a pickup truck. He has a gray beard and he is getting his life

to Foreigner. And then the chorus hits and he just full voice. Yes, I want to know what love is. I know you can show me. I stopped. I clapped, sir, get your life, get your life, slay the house down, boots. Also, please move to Washington Heights. Hey, I'm Paul and I'm America, and this is that aged well yesterday's pop culture. Today Erica, I have a hot off the presses thing we need to talk about. Oh okay, this is a message for

a listener. That listener's name is Brian. I believe Brian is from New Jersey. Should be a preemptively apologize to Brian from New Jersey for I'm sure something we've said about New Jersey. You know, a couple of weeks ago, you said something about, oh, well, your nephew's growing up in New Jersey, so it's it's good that he's fighting the good fight. And someone immediately wrote in it was like, I'm from New Jersey and I agree.

So weren't good there. Ah. But if you're a listener and your name is Brian and you might be from New Jersey and you emailed me about the matrix and the sixth sense and mimeograph machines, I responded to your email, but I'm getting I'm getting blocked as spam, so I did not ignore your email. I tried to respond to you, and I can't if what if Gmail is just like this is too nerdy. I refuse. I'm not enabling you enough enough. Okay, Google itself is telling you no, absolutely

not, stop it. Stop it with your Mimeo grasps. It got the bounce back, and I got so because I really do try to respond to everything that we get as much as I can. And I love you, Paul. You're so good. I wrote like he wrote, like a really nice email, and then I responded bounce back, and I was like, he's gonna think I ignored him. I didn't ignore you. I tried. You, guys a little little window into Paul. He is the fucking best. Uh Erica. We are in March. We're doing murder Mystery March Do

Do Do? I don't know why did that sound, but that felt like the seventies. Something happened in the Murder Mystery chime that you like, this is a clue? Yeah? Oh? Why why is the Grandfather clock broken? You know there were two keys to this door? Do Do do? Yeah? Yeah? But first before we get to our murder mystery for the day, we do have a five star Apple Podcast review would you like me to read or shall you read? I'll read it, okay. Today's review

comes from Podfan nineteen seventy five. Good year that one, hey bus, love this so much. This is my absolute favorite new podcast that I'm listening to. I heard Erica the original cast podcast, Hey Hey, where we discussed Cabaret and we talked about Nazis for so long you do so much longer than you think you're gonna talk about Nazis, and immediately knew that I needed to listen to that. Aged well, I'm binging it like crazy. The

chemistry is amazing, the content fantastic. It's like comfort food for the soul. Keep producing amazing work. Oh well, you pod fan, Thank you, pod Fan nineteen seventy five. That's so nice. It's so nice to hear when when a guest Spot of Hours inspires someone to come listen to us. Yeah right. Also, while we're there, go listen to the original cast podcast. It's pretty great. Paul and I have both done episodes. Mine was on Cabaret, yours was on Kimberly Akimbo. That's right. We

talked a lot about musical theater. You think we talk a lot about musical theater here. Just you wait till you put us on a podcast about musical theater. Oh boy, you think we talk a lot about Nazis here, wait till we talk with someone else about Nazis. Yeah, all right, pod Fan nineteen seventy five. Thank you so much for the review. If you would like a that age, well, tope bag. All you needs must do is email me or dm me on Instagram and let me know this

is you. I will send it off for you. Erica, what is the murder mystery that we're talking about today? Oh? Well, Paul, today is murder mystery? Uh is? Uh? Hang on, let me look at my notes. Just one more thing, one more thing, hang on, one more thing. It's the iconic television program Colombo. That's right. Colombo was requested by no one. No one requested Columbo. And I

went rogue. We went rogue. I said, I've heard that Colombo is bunkers, and I think we should do a Colombo because some people requested murder, she wrote, But we had done a murder she wrote already, yeah, And I was like, we don't need to be repeating things yet, Like there's a lot out there. Let's do a Colombo, and I went onto IMDb and I looked, because there's only like forty or fifty episodes of

Columbo. I looked at every single one, and I found the one that I thought would speak most to mine Erica's soul because it stars one of Erica's favorite performers of all time. We'll get to it. Oh, and has a cameo for the Gods. That's right, all right, so we are specifically discussing Colombo's season two, episode five, Requiem for a Falling Star.

Colombo was created by Richard Levinson and William Link. Requiem for a Falling Star was written by Jackson Gillis and directed by Richard I'm gonna say quinn Quine. I don't know, probably quine Quine. It's stars Peter falk and Baxter, Frank Converse, Pipa Scott, Kevin McCarthy the actor, not the disgraced former House Republican, and Mel Ferrer. We could just tell them now it's Anne Baxter. We're here for Anne Baxter. I ironically love Anne Baxter because she

is both imminently watchable but terrible as an actor. Like just she's two things at once. And I'm here for her. Colombo is credited with popularized the inverted detective story quote unquote, also referred to as how Ketchum, in which and the audience is fully of where who the criminal is and the story at tension arises and how the hero will expose the crimes. They're doing that now

on poker Face. That's right. You don't need a palicuns for this, But that was what I was going to tell people to go watch if they had it, if they like this, this is what how Ketchum is, what poker Face is doing. And what's so funny is because I've more recently watched poker Face than Colombo, I thought she was doing a straight up Columbo impersonation, but actually what's funny is Natasha Leone is actually, i think bigger

than Peter falk Is in terms of the performance. Like she's doing like what you think you remember Colombo is like she's not actually doing Colombo, and it's it's wonderful, Like she's so good on that show, all right. The character of Colombo first appeared in a short story by Levinson and Link. This led to an appearance in a TV anthology series and then to a stage play

Prescription murder. Levinson has said that the catchphrase, oh what more thing was born by accident in the stage play when they had a scene that was too short, and rather than retype the whole scene, they just had to turn around and come back in and say, oh, just one more thing, which is amazing. Talk about how typewriters, how computers changed, Hollywood. We don't want to retype this. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. My fingers are tired. I don't have enough white out

in case I make a mistake. That's right, we're gonna need We're gonna need what Oh shit, I forgot what those were called. The paper you put in the back of the paper to copy the paper, so as you were typing something, it like made a copy. Ah. The older listeners are screaming at their computers right now, screaming. They know what I'm talking. This is the mimiograph machine from all over again from Not Daisy Can if you fast times at Richmond High. That's what Brian was emailing us about carbon

paper. I remember it's carbon paper. Good for carbon paper between the two pieces and then you type, and then you have the origin and a copy. Because of the carbon paper. People under the age of thirty are like, please please put fuck it. People under the age of forty right now are like, put these two out to pasture. Is she having an episode? Is just what is she talking about? You know? That reminds me remember those those old credit card machines or you give them your credit card and

they do that incredibly satisfying, like shrunk drunk. Yes, I want to open a small bookshop and only do credit cards like that. Aha, it's still so satisfying. You see it every once in a while in the wild and you're like, I want one of those. I need a credit card machine. There's got to be an ASMR video with that noise in it, right, I mean, honestly, we should open a bookshop do like normal transactions, but on top of the normal transaction, do a credit card carbon

copy machine. Yeah, if you want to donate a dollar to the bookstore to celebrate, like like like brick and mortar bookstores, We'll let you put your credit card machine and make that. I would pay a dollar to do that every time I went in. We could also have a typewriter in the corner with carbon paper. Well to type. What's like a little letter gold mine. Holy okay, guys randing the podcast right now, we're gonna go open this book to open a bookstore. So I was very disappointed that this

catchphrase does not appear in this episode of Colombo. He doesn't say one more thing. He doesn't just one more thing. I really thought he did in my brain he did. If you told ask me, if you if you quizzed me on this, I would have been like, yeah he did, obviously, Yeah, of course. Yeah. Paul Colombo has a ninety percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a seventy nine percent audience score. I'm shocked by that. Heathens, Philistine's Monsters, Neanderthals. Is it possible someone's cat

got on the computer by accident and gave Colombo a zero? And it's dragging everyone down? Is it dragging all the other one hundred percent perfect reviews down? Every single time I'm editing this podcast, Oliver climbs across the computer and I am terrified that he is going to accidentally delete a file. I save every three minute because I'm fraid, like just half an episode, and then you hear like, stomp, stomp, stomping. It's just the cat.

Yeah, pretty much. I can't believe the seven ninety percent is fine. I can't believe the seventy nine percent audience score. I mean either that is shocking. Okay, first of all, what did you think you were watching? Right? This show? This show crew was was created before Paul and I were born. That's okay. So it is older than fuck, it is older than people who know what carbon paper is. That is how old

this show is. Carbon paper was an innovation to this show. Okay, not only do we know what carbon paper is, we've both used it. That's how old we are. So like, I cannot believe someone came to this and was like, ugh, this is so boring or this is so old timey, or he doesn't seem to know anything, or why do they tell us who the killer was at the beginning? Like why is he wearing that trench coat? What's going on? You forever? If that's you,

fuck you forever. Frankly, this should have one hundred percent audience score audience score, but I'm with you. Ninety percent seems fine. I'm fine with that. This show is so like iconic. Yeah, I had never seen it before, and it is a comfort watch. That is how Daddy Peter fawk Is. He's not even daddy, He's fucking Grandpa from like he really is Grandpa. He's he's he's Hal Wholebrook. Yes, yeah, yes, yeah, which reminds me, Paul, when did you first see Colombo?

I saw it yesterday for the first time. I watched this episode totally cold. I knew Peter falk from we did Princess Bride Murdered by Death and The Princess Bride of course. I mean, look, Peter Faulk is in the pantheon. If you don't what I'm talking about joining the Patreon hey, hey,

but he he is so comforting to watch. Yeah. Maybe it's just because he was on in the background when we were growing up, and I don't even remember it, like because the show ended I think before we were born, and then it did like he did like some movies and stuff. But he might it must have been on and like when he walked on screen, it was just immediately like, Okay, everything's good, everything's good in the world. Yeah, what an incredible power that is. So he also

has such a distinct face. Are you watching that Feud show on FX? I did watch? I did, Okay, Okay, So in the pilot episode. In the first episode, we see Truman Capoti on the set of Murder by Death. None of the other actors are talking, but you can like it's the cast of Murder by Death and the person they cast to play Peter Falk, who again doesn't even speak. The second I saw him, I was like, that's the Peter fall guy. That's to be all right,

Erica, when did you first see Colombo? Interestingly, this might be the first time I've seen a full episode from beginning to end. Okay, which would have been yesterday. That was the first time I saw a full episode from beginning to end. I have seen five to twenty five minutes of every single episode of Colombo. Okay, because my mother not only does she like it's her favorite show, is she's seen all of them. She's seen

all of them like fifteen times. Okay, she is She is like every moment of Columbo memorized to the point where she was like, which one are you doing? And I said the one was Anne Baxter and She's like, oh, recom for a falling Star, and I'm like, holy shit. So Colombo was a constant in my household growing up. It's it's again why

I associate it with comfort. I just pictured my mom like on the couch watching Colombo and was like gently falling asleep to it, you know, like after school special kind of thing, and I it was so it was just like a constant, ubiquitous sound in the background. I don't know why it took me this long to actually watch a full episode. I think I think because I was just like happy only seeing fifteen minutes at a time, and was just like associated it with like my mom so much. I don't know

it. But anyway, yesterday it was the first time I'd seen a whole episode. I'm so glad you picked this one, Paul. I. About halfway through, I was like this, I was correct, this is I

was right. Yeah, I did well. Also, I like that it's a second season episode, so it's like the show knows what it is by now, but it's not so it's not so later, much much later in the run, like when we get into the eighties and the nineties, even they made it specials well into the nineties even yeah, well I don't know about well into but into the nineties, Peter Falk had just become such a like a parody of himself from these early episodes that when I saw like his

performance in this, I was like, oh, okay, he's still kind of being naturalistic. Yeah, he's still kind of being a human being. Later, if you watch one from like nineteen eighty nine, he is like a muppet. It is a muppet. It's one hundred percent just a muppet on like talking to like William Shatner. All right, Erica. The tagline for Columbo was we all say it with me, one more thing, one more thing. That's one more thing. We all know it. It's perfect,

no no ites. Shall I read the iTunes synopsies? Yes? Please? Okay? Anne Baxter and Mel Ferrer star as a fading actress and a Hollywood gossip columnist whose hatred of each other culminates in murder. Yes, yes, I love it. That's the level of drama everyone is bringing to this at all times. Yeah. And can I say Anne Baxter is such a perfect casting choice too for this, Like if they couldn't get Joan Crawford,

I'm glad they got Anne Baxter, you know what I mean. Like it's that level of like we need someone who is from the old, old vanguard of Hollywood. If Gloria Swanson didn't want to do a parody of herself in Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, we'll get Anne Baxter. We'll just get Anne Baxter to do it. Do you have an actual synopsis for this episode of Colombo? It's terrible. Yeah, but my actual synopsis is which one is it? I think it's the right one. No, it's the left one.

No, No, it's the right one. He didn't squint when he looked at the sun with the right one. It's the right one. I'm pretty sure. It's hard to tell. Move if you don't know what I'm talking about. Lea's Google Peter Fault. Can I can I offer I just I just thought of my own actual synopsis? Can I offer one for it? Where are the Turbans? I expected Turbans in this episode? This episode is turbineless On and Baxter. Oh, it was waiting for the Turbans. All

right, So everyone stick around. We're gonna come right back. We're going to take you through Columbo Season two, episode five, Requiem for a Falling Star right after these messages, Unless you are, of course, a Patreon. A Patreon subscriber can listen to this episode with no commercials, So get the to Patreon sign up. You don't want to hear some I keep getting ones for the state of Florida, and I don't know if it's because they

know I'm here. They do. It's randomly getting commercial, But why would you give it? Why would you send a commercial for someone who's in Florida about Florida. That doesn't make that's almost Florida thing ever. Actually I think about it, Florida is like this spending your tax money. And I'm like, but I've already here. What do I do while I'm here? And they're like, I don't know. Come to Florida find out, and we're back. We open on a grand mansion. We're inside this enormous house.

It's perhaps reminiscent of the mansion and clue. Big rooms, high ceilings, chandeliers, a big house on a dark and stormy night. A portentous piano plays as we watch a woman grab a pistol from her desk drawer. She walks from the grandiose carpeted den into a grandiose carpeted living room. There's an enormous set of double doors there. She throws the double doors open to reveal a bathroom. Steamy. There's a man showering. He's wearing white boxer shorts

in the shower. While he showers, she raises the pistol. She fires once, twice, thrice, force fifees and sights. She fires the pistol sixfold times. Okay, there's no blood spatter. The man just stands there and takes it. The glass breaks as she fires, and he just falls there. She keeps breaking. I'm like, shouldn't they just break one time? It's like break, break, break, break, I'm like, what

is this glass made out of? The woman turns around and says, don missed him, and she bursts into laughter, and we pull back and reveal a cast and crew yucking it up with her. It was all part of a movie. He's not really dead, No, he's just an extra wearing boxer shorts in the seven. He's a never nude. He's a never new the first instance of a never nut in pop culture, possibly a So this

is n Baxter. Obviously, this dress that she's wearing the scene, it's very chic, it's beautiful, But is it not a tad reminiscent of like a high end airline attendant. Oh, but that's what the airlines were going for socialites, but in the air Yeah, no, she wears it a lot because we keep cutting back to the set of this movie that she's thinking and she's wearing the outfit in a few scenes. She's also one of those

people who really can pull most things off. Oh yeah, there's some stuff she wears that is ludicrous in this episode, and I'm like, damn it, she is pulling that off. The crew breaks to set up the next shot, and the woman Norah Chandler. Of course, her name is Nora Chandler, played by the Great and Good and also somewhat Terrible, and Baxter

immediately calls out Jane. Before we can meet Jean, another crew member takes her outside and shows her a powder blue sports car that she immediately appears to recognize, and she does not seem happy. No, the crew member, I don't know if you noticed Paul, but his name was Paul. I didn't, And he was wearing the highest waisted pants and empress waist pants. They were their umpire waist pants. Yeah, they would have been perfectly in place in Jane off sinsera. Yeah, I was like, why why are

his pants coming up to a sternum I don't understand the seventies. I don't understand how that could have been comfortable for anything in his crotch. There's a lot of stuff in his and none of it is happy right now. I mean, it's all been squished, a submission done. It's just over and done with, or just moved to one side, I guess. I mean, but talk about a self wedgie is what we're looking at here. I

mean, those pants are just like a torture device. I don't know how a man does it, but I don't know how all the men did it because they're all wearing high waisted pants. It's correct, it's the era of the high waisted pant line. So the crew member confirms that quote unquote. They're inside, and Norah's face hardens. She thanks him and stalks across the lot too. I mean, is it her house or is it it is

her house? House? Right? Is where she lives? She says in this show that she lives here while she's shooting, which implies that she does have another house. The reason I'm bringing this up, ladies and gentlemen and everyone else is that, like the woman walks across, what you would think about when you think of like the Warner Brothers law the Paramo and into a fucking giant house, almost mansion size house. Yeah, they call it a bungalow in a cottage, and I'm like, that's a month's okay, that's

a month indeed. Well, but also I think this was a thing. This was what used to happen in like the old like old old old Hollywood. Is they give the biggest stars what like a dressing room that was actually a fucking giant house. Yeah, it is stunning to see one in real life or like a recreation of one, I should say, because like I feel like this is something that was lost to time and I would love to see more images of what those like what was Shirley Temple's right dressing room?

Like, like, was it a giant fucking fun house for this kid who've like built the studio because she made so much money. This is somewhat based on that, because they say and like like Norah Chandler was a child star. Yeah, came up through the studio system and was part of the studio, this unnamed studio becoming successful, like she is in the fabric of this studio and she at one point was married to the head of the studio and all that stuff. So like she's a big deal on this lot. Yeah,

she's norma Shearer, a plus level Hollywood. I'm so this is so fascinating to me. Honestly, I could have paused here and just like stared at the house for five minutes. But we're moving on. So she walks to her mom's and we cut inside to find Jeene Davis played by Pippa Scott, Norah's longtime assistant, passionately making out with Jerry Parks mel Ferrer. I don't want to be mean, Paul, but mean, how did mel Ferrer bag Audrey? Hepburn? Seriously that guy, he's goofy looking. He's goofy

that guy. I like. Audrey clearly liked a sense of humor. Maybe she liked a little geeky guy. Right now, he would be Jim Parsons on Big Bang Theory. That is the that is the modern better looking than melf Like. He's Johnny Galicki not Jim Parsons, which, to be fair, Johnny Gleckey did date the girl and that kill you know what. Women?

Women like cork, Women enjoy cork. But because I was watching Jeene Davis making out with mel Ferrer, or not Geene Davis Pipa Scott the actress and making out with Melfrer, and I was like, ooh, miss, you earned your paycheck my friends, all right, So Jerry parks. Mal Ferrer's character is a gossip columnist, a famed gossip columnist. Nora slips in and she overhears Gene reminding Jerry of his commitment at a local bookstore every night

that week. You have to go to this book signing. It's important. But she says she can't wait for him to get home so they can celebrate his birthday. Jerry warns her not to let quote unquote the Wicked Witch ruin her night off. What if Margaret Hamilton had played Nora Chandler in full Alphaba like makeup. I realized this is forty years later, so she'd had been quite old at this point. But yeah, I think it's possibly dead.

She made god, But what if I could have done that? If we Necroman served Margaret Aimal takes just a mind exercise, It's the thought experiment. What if ABO had to deal with her in that outfit like the whole time, and like was like I wonder who the killer is, and she's throwing fireballs at him. She's murdering dogs in the corner. Jesus, only I could figure out who the killer is here? Hello again, Colombo? All right? So Nora has heard enough. She walks in and she pretends to

be surprised that Jerry is there before dismissing Gene on an errand. And once Gene is gone, Norah drops the hostess act and asks Jerry, what are you doing here? She's pouring herself a drink from her enormous wet bar. I have to say, if I if I had a wet bar in my house, I wouldn't put it on. Carpeting. There's too much carpeting in the seventies. That's how you know people are rich. Ye, just carpeting, Paul, it's white carpeting. It's white carpeting there stepping on in their

shoes. Harpending gets replaced once a month. The whole house just in a constant state of getting recarpeted. Yeah, it's it's just a rotation. A So Jerry smirks and he comments that, well, you know, I've been doing some research and I noticed that, you know, you made that movie in Italy that bombed, only somehow you didn't lose a dime and the studio lost two million dollars. And Nora kind of takes a sip of her drink and she says, Oh, I'm too tired to talk. Why don't you

go out. We'll talk about this later. And Jerry, he will not be he will not be deterred. He mentions, how, oh, isn't there a big studio executive meeting happening and the big head of the studio, Frank Simmons, is arriving tonight for a meeting, and why did he be interested? Wouldn't you be interested in Nora? And how it has been movie stars swindled him out of his money, right, so this is all set up. Nora, who is a producer on her own movies, somehow fixed

it. So all the loss went to the studio, none to her, got it Which doesn't seem like corruption at all. It just seems a good business sense. It seems like she covered her ass in the studio, didn't just shows whatever she did illegal. That seems like just absolutely good business practices. Yeah, Nora now provides an important PSA for everybody listening. She demonstrates how not to slap someone in the face, or how to slap someone in the face. Anne Baxter. Let's let's let's not give this to Nora.

This is Anne Baxter, Anne Baxter and Baxter so hard she winds up. She gives them like a forty five second head start before she slaps him. It is so good. She is winding up like a picture on the mound in the World Series bottom of the ninth that bases loaded the full count up against the cleanup hitter like this is. She leans back. His hand is ready to catch her hand before her head gets there. Yeah, she's doing a full fucking aria before she she slaps him. I've seen Anne Baxter slap

people before. This is how she does it. This is how she understands slapping should happen. This is what she thinks a slap is. And no one has disabused her of this notion. Not no one, not will, not cecil b de mil not menka Witz. No. Everyone was like, just let her do it, just let her do it. She's not listening. She it will only take longer if we try to interfere her. I saw a slap once when I was a child, this is what it looks like. No, no, that's sir. So Nora goes to slap him,

but Jerry easily catches her wrist. He assures her, Nora, I'm on your side. I just need a totally reasonable amount of money to compensate me for my time in research. So he's trying to blackmail her. Essentially, he's trying to blackmail her with this information. She agrees, and he kisses her on the cheek before heading out. I have a makeup question for you. I don't wear makeup generally speaking. I wish I wore more me

either, So blind leaving them blind here, but go for it. Her eyeliner is this like the dramatic Sophia Lorenz eyeliner that Jennifer Coolidge was talking about in Best in Show, because it, like the bottom line of it actually like departs from her eye and kind of goes down a little bit to make her eyes seem even wider. I guess I cannot say that I remember what it looks like. I wasn't paying attention. I think I was too busy still on the slap you were laughing? Slap who was laughing at the flap?

I was slapping I possibly from what you describe, that's not the Sophia Laurn like closes right, that's it was like a Cleopatra thing. That's like yes, so perhaps perhaps, But the seventies were also they were not as make up forward as the eighties were, but we were getting there. Yeah, listeners who know about makeup, let me know if that's it, if that's a thing, or if that's just Anne Baxter like doing a bad job in her own eyeliner. I don't know. I'm just curious, Oh,

Paul, Anne Baxter's never done her own eyeliner. Nora then after after Jerry leaves, gets a canny look on her face and she starts to write a list. Gene returns. Gene remembers that Nora's beleaguered assistant, Norah, immediately accuses her of leaking information to Jerry. Jane vehemently denies this, but also reveals that Jerry has asked to marry him. Okay, so the guy who is blackmailing Maura is also like trying to marry her assistant who's like been her

assistant for twenty years. Nora is not wrong to be hello suspicious here? Did you notice that he also she also says he asked me to marry him in a letter. In a letter. In a letter, he because someone was traveling. He was traveling, they were traveling or whatever, and he wrote, he wrote her a letter to propose to her. You know what, I'm gonna land on the side of romantic. Actually, as long as he included a dick pic right, well, they didn't have like maybe unless

they had a polaroid. So it was a drawing of you know how you used to make those turkeys out of your hand in elementary school. As long as you lay your dick on it, and like, look, I drew Florida, you know, you know, Paul, he took his dick to a caricature artist and had them do it. So his dick is like on the Eiffel Tower with it with a French mustache and a ballet. His dick is enjoying a nice sunny beach vacation. That's right, that's right. So

Noraa is shocked and unappalled by all of this. She mocks Gene, come on, you idiot, he's not really into you. He's just a smut peddler who could never have real feelings. He's using you to get to me. Gene assures her, look, I love him, he loves me. He's never once asked me for anything about you ever, and then she apologizes for upsetting her. You know what, when I was watching it, I was on Jeane side, But now that I'm talking it over out loud,

I'm like everything Noura does makes a lot of sense. Norah immediately switches gears and she starts to cry, and she apologizes for shitting all of her Jean's engagement by letters news like, I'm sorry I ever doing this for you. Before you know it, she and her crocodile tears have convinced Jane to let it all pass, okay, don't worry about it, and she hands Jeane this like long, long list of errands that will take hours for her to

run, despite Jeane's plans that she knows about with Jerry that evening. So we cut to that evening and to the bookstore where Jerry is signing autographs. We see Jane pull up, and we cut to Nora and her I'm gonna do some crimes outfit right she's wearing. She's wearing a brown trench coat and wide legged tweed trousers in this beautiful like bronze and turquoise and brown headscarf and sunglasses. Despite it being fully nighttime. She looks incredible. She looks incredible

in every scene. It's so good safe for this episode. Dress up for your crimes. Don't just commit your crimes in sweatpants, like, have some self respects. I always commit crimes in a three piece suit. Buy a very expensive trench coat in which to commit your crimes in. Make it an event, make it special exactly that way, you'll remember it and you'll be

memorable to all the witnesses. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So Jeane rushes into the bookstore to explain what's going on to Jerry, and Norah slips out of her car and we don't see what happens, but it appears like she does something to Jeane's car, but we don't know what it is. Yeah. Then she rushes back to her car. She drives off into the night, and we cut to her on the patio of a house, dumping a trail of gasoline from the driveway to around the corner of the house. She

hears a car coming. She quickly finishes the job, and Jerry's powder blue sports car pulls up right onto the pool of gasoline that Nora has planted. She strikes a match the gasolining knights and boom California Fried Gossip columnist ha ha, How does she not wreak of gasoline? After this? We are later going to find out that she just takes this very very obvious evidence and just kind of like throws it down the hill behind this house. What was crime

scene investigation in nineteen seventy three? She spent too long picking out her i'm adu crime outfit and not long enough thinking about very basic things like don't leave the murder weapon if you can help it. Also, it's such an obvious arson, it's not even like this. Yes, there's no like she didn't cut the on the car, so that would like go off a cliff or

something else. She's like, she may as well have spelled her name out in the gasoline, but like Nora was here, wu z. We cut to Nora later that evening at dinner with two executives, Frank Simmons played by Kevin McCarthy and Fallon Just Fallen, Just Fallen played by Frank Converse. I this she looks so good in this scene. She's dressed She's all gussied up for dinner with like the like the boss and the boss's boss, and she

just looks so good. They're at like Chasin's or some like glamorous Hollywood night spot. Right, it seems that mister Simmons has recently bought the studio from Fallon, though Fallon still works there. Fallon is way too young to have owned a movie studio, Am I right? He's so young that they actually point out how young he is in it like Columbo's like, wouldn't have expected you to on a movie studio, you're twenty four? What? Like? Why cast him? If I have no idea? Why not switch these two

men or something? I don't know. Anyway, it's weird. It is a little weird. So she's charming them. She's doing her movie star thing. When the waiter arrives and tells Noura there's a man outside to see you. He says it's urgent. It's like, oh, it's probably just a fan, and she gets up. She leaves the table. At the front of the restaurant, a policeman tells her that there was an explosion at Jerry Parks's house, and she's like, I don't understand why I'm being told though,

I mean, he and I barely even know each other. And suddenly Jerry walks in and she goes, Jerry, you're alive, and Jerry tells her it wasn't me who was killed. It was Gene. She was alone in my car and an explosion killed her. No, Nora faints dead away and again this is why he casts Anne Baxter, the fucking elegance, the class. The seventeen steps it takes for her to faint, Everything about this is perfect, the eyes rolling back in her head like like it is the

most It is a scarlet O'Hara faint. Oh, it is a fate for the gods. It is a faint that like can be seen at the Palladium Theater in the back fucking world. Right yep. And now we cut to Lieutenant Frank Colombo played by Peter Falk as he drives up to the studio the following day in his rundown car. He arrives at Nora's. They call it a bungalow, but again, this is a mansion. It is a mansion.

Sitting down in the middle of the studio a lot, and he realized kind of outside, he's like, oh God, about to meet Norah Chandler. And he starts to clean his nails a little bit because he's, you know, he's unkempt. It's kind of a hallmark of the character. Knocks on the door and he's greeted by Simmons. That's the new studiohead the studio. Who is the studiohead who has just bought the studio. By the way,

This guy Javan McCarthy. He's weird and that he's I don't know what the acting thing he's doing is, but it's like I'm going to lean forward and talk like this all the time. You understand, I'm gonna hold you responsible. Then that's it. That's his only tone. He is the same actor in that Golden Girls episode, right, the one where Dorothy and Blanche fight over the doctor. No, no, you know he was on the Golden Girls though he was he was he like asked Blanche to marry him,

but he had kids or something. Wasn't that him? Yes? Okay, yes, yes, yes, he's he's a rich guy that Blanche almost marries, but she she realizes that he only wants her to like raise his kids. Basically, like he likes her a whole lot, but he wants Blanche is not the woman I would choose to raise children. No, certainly not. I think her own kids would pack me up on that one. Yeah, oh yeah, I knew I'd seen him on Golden Girls, though. As soon as I thought him, I was like, he's on Golden Girls.

He looks like a Golden Girl's boyfriend. He absolutely does, all right, So Simmons starts expounding about how upset Nora is now Columbo needs to be gentle with her, and Colombo assures him that I'll be quick, mister Simons, I'll be quick. Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. He also Simmons also mentions here that Jean has been Nora's secretary and constant companion for eighteen years. She's, oh, well, I us know, she's probably like forty. I would say, yeah, yeah, okay, I'm I'm

trying to remember what she looked like. Yeah, yeah, because I did not catch the eighteen years part. I'm like, Jesus christeen years. Eighteen years. Can you imagine working for any actor? I don't care if it's the nicest one. Yeah, still gonna be fucking weird, even if you're working for like Kevin Bacon and Kira Sedgwick, it's still weird the moments of your day where you're like, so, a goat farm. Huh yeah, so we're doing the goat farm thing today. Okay, So so my job

is to go get your dry cleaning again. Okay, Okay, I'm I'm an adult person and my job is to do that. Okay, just check it. You want me to film you while you've played the guitar, okay, okay, no, no, no, it's never a guitar. It's like a fucking ukulele and it's playing it with some goats or something, and I love it so much every time. I love it too, Don't get

me wrong. That's why I picked them, because they seem like, if you're gonna work for some Hollywood couple, that's the couple you want to ask, the one you want. Yeah, that's the normalist Hollywood couples you definitely don't want. Nick Jonas and Prianca Chopra. Those two are awful, I'm sure. Actually, I don't know. Do we know tea is their teeth? We know Prianka Chopra is a terrible person. I think I've heard a

lot of stories about that. I don't know anything about them. No, I am picturing some beleaguer assistant having to film having to do twelve takes of Kevin Bacon with his ukulele, singing like My Sharona to his goats? Do you an acoustic cover of Footloose to his goats at his ukulele? Yeah? So Colombo heads in. He's greeted by Nora in full hostess mode. She is wearing eight Is that a tattered lace business suit? Is that correct?

Is Paul? Yeah? Yeah? Colombo is himself a bit starstruck. He admits Miss Chim, I've been love with you my whole life, and Nora graciously says, I know you never expected to meet a legend. I love her so much? Is it wrong? How much I'm on her? I think it's fine because me also she says it like this, Paul, She goes, I know you never expected to meet a legend like she just full throats it. I love her, she says it with her full chest as

the kids. Yeah, Colombo leads Nora through this whole bit about Nora calling his wife to say hello. Nora plays along, By the way, I apparently we never meet Columbo's wife. This is this is Norm's wife from Cheers, right. This makes my mother happy every time it happens on an episode of Columbo when they mentioned the wife and how you just missed her. Nora is happy to play along, to be the grand dome that she is.

She eventually and here's another golden girl's connection leads him to the lnai, only the second use of lenai I've ever seen in popular culture. Yeah. When I was doing my notes, I called the silarium because I missed her calling it illania for the first time the first time. I was like, oh no, it's a llnaia. Apparently it's a llnai. It's an indoor lenai though, right? Or is it indoor leni? It's in closed lenih okay, So now what is a lani? Then? I thought it was a

b I thought maybe it's a partial enclosure. I don't know, a sun room. Yeah. Colombo then explains to Nora that Jean's death is being investigated as a murder, and of course Norah's like, oh god, no, who would want to murder Jane? Gee? Everyone loved Jean. Everyone loved Jean. Why would anyone want to burn her? To a christmin A car. Why would anyone want to Kentucky Fried Chicken Jean, by the way, very much like Norma Desmond. This house is covered in pictures of Nora Chandler.

Yeah, covered in pictures of Van Baxter. Right. So he looks at the walls and he noticed is a photo of her and her ex husband, who was the former head of the studio, who had died years earlier, right, m hm. And he comments in surprise that her ex was quite short, essentially the same height as Nora, Like, there's this, there's a picture of them, And he's like, you know what, I

always thought you'd be taller too. I guess I just assume all movie people are going to be really really tall, because I see them on the screen. And she laughs and she's she's playing kating him, she's playing along and she's letting him fall in over her. He also notices that her ex husband wore a shriner's ring. Right, that's going to come back later, just put a pin in them. What is a shiner? Is it like an elk, like the Elk's law? I think so. I think it's like

like the Illuminati, but less posh. Okay, okay, working class Illuminati. It's the bargain basement Illuminati got market bace of Illuminati. Actually, no, I think the Shriners is a big thing. I used to see commercials for a Shriner's hospital. I'm not exaggerating. It's on this channel called Cozy

TV. I don't know if anyone else has it, but they show free reds of Frasier, which is why I've watched it, And that channel has a bunch of Shiner's commercials about a Shriner's hospital that they started for kids with very specific diseases, which is a great thing to do, it's a good thing money. But they always cut to like a man wearing a fez hat, like a white man, an old white man wearing a fez hat, and like handing a check to a sick child, And I'm like, what

even is America? What are you doing here? I mostly know them from the Shriner's Ballet from Cheea Rivera's dance to the Shiner's Ballet from Bye Bye Bertie. By the way, r I p Cheetah And if you'd like to see her dance that you can find it on YouTube. Shiner's Ballet Cheater rivera incredible, incredible but again, the Shriners are a real thing. They donate money to hospitals. I think they're very working classes. I think, moving on

anyway, way off topic. But then what are elks are elk like higher class or lower? I think maybe elks are the lower. Maybe elks are lower than shiners. Maybe it's elks Shiner's scholar. And then on top of all of them, obviously the Babysitters Club, and then the Babysitters Club, and then Swift and then Taylor Swift, then Swifties, and then and then K pop fans. So a phone call comes in for Colombo. He apologizes to Nora and asks if she'll take a ride with him to the police headquarters.

Before they leave, though, he goes, oh, I see you have a beautiful garden in your backyard of your studio house, and he's like, my wife is such a fan and she collects clippings. You mind if I take a rose out of your garden for my wife, And she goes, of course, Lieutenant Colombo, you may take whatever you wish for I am a legend. He pulls a flower from the base of a large decorative fountain, which is currently dry, and he's like, oh, there's no

water in that fountain. She goes. Actually, funny story. That was from a movie I made once when I was a child. It's a prop fountain. Yeah. Colombo brings Nora to the police station's parking garage. By the way, all these cars are parked neatly. He just pulls up in like parks in the middle of the road, just gets out of the car. No respect. Never change, Colombo, Never change. Nora is almost overcome at the sight of the burned out husk of Jerry's car. Oh my

god, Oh my god, that gene. Oh my god. They explain that Jerry and Jean swapped cars because his Jeans had a flat tire, which might imply this wasn't a horrible mistake, and that Jerry was the target of a murderer. Nor Oh my god, She's overcome. I want to go home. I want to go home, she tells. In his arms, she collapses and he has to hold her. No, I can't, combo,

I simply cannot. This is from a time when a car exploding would lead to a police investigation and not just be assumed to be a manufacturers defect like it is now. Old times, you know what if you really, if you wanted to murder someone right now, buy them a tesla, buy them a tesla and just cross your fingers and blow it up and no one will look at it, no one even thinks anything of it. So she said, I want to go home, and Columbo tells her, no,

we need your help now, miss Chandler. We need you all help because we got to figure out who want to murder Jerry Parks. I don't know why she is supposed to help them do that. I mean, I think the implication is that Colombo just wants to keep her involved in the case because he's not convinced of any of this, right, But exactly the idea that he's like, no, you're who we need to talk to to figure out who hates Jerry Parks is it's a it's a thin it's a thin a frinsh.

Yeah. Yeah. I actually wonder about this because I feel like this happens a lot in these episodes because he plays it so cool. I wonder if maybe other people who watch more Colombo than I have could tell you could tell us, But like, is it is it ever clear when he figures it out or does he always just kind of hang on to people until he stumbles on something like yeah, he doesn't quite let anyone else, like, let like let anyone off the hook until he knows what the hook is.

Basically I do, I can't tell because you're right. At this point, he should have been like, well, thank you for your help with this investigation. We'll call you when we know something see you later. But instead he keeps visiting her every day, and like he does this in every episode, so it's not just because she's a movie star that he wants to like fall over, Like, yeah, he does this with everyone, And I'm

like, did you know before this started who the killer was? And you just fucking with all of us. We cut to Columbo at Jerry's house. He's investigating the scene of the crime, and he's interrogating Jerry, who, by the way, does not seem all that broken up about Jeane's. Yes, I have never I have been more upset about somebody dying who white literally did not know. Yes, He's like, yeah, well she's dead. Oh well and my car is gone too. That sucks, right. So

Colombo is like, so who might want to murder you? And Jerry's like, well, I'm a famed gossip columnist in Hollywood, so literally everyone everyone I've ever met. They quickly discover the two giant empty gasoline cans that Nora

just tossed into the bushes after the explosion. Ah, so they're thinking this is probably at very least Arson Colombo, I think, is also picking up what we're putting down about him being awfully blase about Jean's murder, and he starts to kind of like tap around the idea that hey, maybe you weren't with Jeane for honorable reasons. Maybe you really were with Jane to get gossip about Nora, and Jerry is like, appso absolutely not. I love John Jean, Jean, dammit Jean, damn it. Yeah right, Gene,

I loved Jane. Gee fuck, why do I keep doing that? And He's like, you know what, mister Colombo, I'm more than happy to let you see my entire file on Nora. The dark secret fights with the husband, the ex husband, right the dead one, her husband's casting couch, and the evening that her husband died on a fishing trip, all this stuff. Columbo says, it's all a matter of public record anyway, and Jerry can just keep his files, yeh. Look, He's like, look,

I haven't written anything on Nora in years. She's old news. We're just old friends. Right then the phone rings, and while we can see that it's Nora on the line, Jerry plays it off as the wrong number in front of Colombo. He doesn't want Columbo to know they're they're in cahoots. Can we talk about the insert shot of Anne Baxter? We certainly can pall. She doesn't speak, it's just a cut to her, so we

know that, so the audience knows that's who was on the line. She's wearing like one of those fabulous seventies kind of like flowing gowns with like the splotches of color. Yes, and she looks like someone just shot her in the chest. And that leads to her final moments of life. The expression out her face is so over the top. YA probably told Anne Baxter to be as small as she can and she got it. Got it subtle, as subtle as you possibly can, Ann, And she's like, got it

a subtle legend? I understand, Anne. Remember, we need you to be realistic like a human being would in this scene. And she's like, I've seen many human beings, don't worry. I'm an Baxter, Paul. Is this your first time seeing Anne Baxter in something? I know you've seen all about it, but you don't quite remember it. Yeah, I think that would be the well, and I've seen the Ten Commandments. Probably also

don't remember that. So I've seen her in things, but not like recently where I I don't know that you've ever clocked how amazing she is because it takes a minute. It takes a few viewings to be like, she is horrible in the best possible way. In the best way. She is like ten people in the body of one person. She's acting for ten, all right. So Colombo kind of gives Jerry a wonky look and then he's like, okay, I believe you that that was a wrong number. That was

a woman though, right. I like the way you talk to her that I could tell that the person. I could tell you were talking to a woman. And Jerry's like, what are you talking about? And he's like, your phone manner was very polite, much much more polite than you would be for a man. And Jerry's wigged out. Clumb was like, you know what, never mind, I gotta go buy and he leaves Jerry as soon as Columba leaves, immediately calls Nora back. We cut to a country

club. Nora pulls up. Now she's wearing this very fabulous like tweed coat. Yes, this is my favorite outfit of the show. But like red hose and matching red shoes at the hose. But then these sunglasses that are like, I don't know, hexagga. I can't say the word hexagonal, hexagonal. It's a hexagon in gold with black dark shades sunglasses. It is the most fucking excellent thing I've ever seen. It is so cool. So Nora and Jerry head into the club as we see Columbo arrive and he notices

Nora's car and kind of starts looking at the car. Jerry immediately implies to Nora, Okay, I know that you tried to kill me. There's not even any question in his mind what happened last night. She denies. He's not convinced, and he's like, it's not a problem. We're old friends. Just pay me ten times the amount of blackmail you owed me yesterday and we can just forget this little murder attempt ever happened again. Not super upset

about Gene, not really even super upset about almost being murdered. No, take takes one on the chin on that pretty easily. I will say that. Oh oh, Jerry knows a thing or two about blackmail and murder. Yeah. Yeah, He's like, look, we've all been there. Okay, you took a shot and you missed. Nora throws it right back at him. She's admitting nothing. She tells him she's been copying all of his letters to Jane, so she knows that Jerry was borrowing money from Gene to

keep himself afloat. Do you think she was copying them onto carbon paper? Of course she was, Paul. How else would someone copy something in the seventies. The only way to make copies with carbon paper. So Nora goes on to say, maybe Jeane figured out that the only reason you were with her is to borrow money from her, and she threatened to leave you, and you killed her. That's a great motive for me to take the police. Why don't you shut your full mouth, Jerry, ha ha ha ha.

The two of them start to part, and just as they split up, Columbo arrives and they start to stammer suspiciously about why they're together and Columbo tells them that last night and Nate noticed a cost beeding away from the scene of the crime. You know, and I was hoping maybe the two of you were getting together to figure out who might I just want to kill Jerry right sad le Nora tells him that you're just reminiscing about Jane. But I

must go. I have a meeting. All of Hollywood is in trouble, and I have to go save it and Jerry, as she leaves, launches another barb about how her husband would be spinning in his grave over the state of Hollywood, that is, if he had one. Well, it was a fishing accident. Is not the ocean his grave. How does someone die in a fishing accident? Do you accidentally get hooked in the eye by another

fisherman and then launched overboard and then the other fisherman. I'm going with one of those things where you pull up a fish right, and you get it up, but then a much bigger fish comes up and swallows you and your whole fishing line. Yeah, like a whale shark comes in and just goes like a switcheroo kind of situation, Like just in your moment of triumph. Oh no, I've been eaten by a giant squid ah or struck by lightning. Just struck by lightning. Guys to go fishing in a lightning storm.

What's your problem? How are you doing? Maybe it's the kind of thing where he went he went to cast the line back, and somehow the wind took the line and he got the line wrapped itself wildly around his neck and it throttled him. Oh, dear, you know what, that is a lot more common than you'd think it is. Be careful. There fishens at least forty times a day, and fisher women and fisher people, fisher people. Let's be inclusive here, Paul, for god's sake, what are we

doing here if we're not being inclusive? We cut to Nora back on set, where her character is defending herself from accusations of murder. It is exactly what you think the scene is like. She's distracted, she's frustrated with the script though she can't seem to get her lines right. Columbo sneaks on set and he starts to watch, but of course he almost immediately like pumps into a ladder and makes a loud noise and they have to stop the scene.

Nora says she needs a walk, so she goes to walk, and he intercepts her. He points out that no one will talk about Jerry even though no one seems to like him. Huh weird. Could Jerry be a blackmailer? Nora goes, blackmailer, that's a guess, even walkmail anyway, I gotta go, it's African American mail. By the way, that's what we're saying now, So I don't know what you're talking about. Blackmail. That's funny, Detective, that's really your You should write movies. Is Harpa Marks

still alive? You can write for Harpo Marks. That is a direct quote to everyone listening exactly what she says. Yes. Yeah. Colombo then goes on to say that they can't figure out how Jean's tire went flat, and that the cars speeding from the scene of the crime matches a description of all the studio cars, right, Like, is that weird? All the studio cars look like this, Win And Nora's like, ah, anyway, studio cars. That's funny, like a like a car n a studio that's like,

you know, what's great? Studio apartments? They don't talk about that enough, how small they are, but also how very very livable studio apartments are. Anyway, I have to get back to work because I'm an actor and I'm in a scene, and if I don't do my job, the crew doesn't get paid. And one hundreds of people work on this movie. Studio cars. Oh, detective again, an exact quote, exactly xactly, It's exactly what happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So Nora goes to

get her makeup redone. We hear in the distance someone's like, Wow, you're sweating a lot. This is that same high waisted crew man from before, and I'm moving for him. I loved him. And Colombo notices fallin the curiously young former head of the studio, right. He goes up to

talk to him, and we get more of Nora's backstory fallon. Let's let's Columbo and the audience know that she inherited a large share of the studio from her late husband, who died in that fishing accident, which was, of course what happened when he tripped in the boat, fell backwards and cracked his head open on one of the oarlocks, which actually feels like something that could

happen. That one feels too real. How about he started eating a fish on deck because he was too hungry and couldn't wait, and he choked on a bone and died there it is, Yeah, that makes sense. Yep, yep. I think what happened is he tripped and he actually accidentally got his hand stuck in all the bait, and he was so disgusted he just decided to end it. I'm forever unclean now. It's all disgusting, okay. Valin tells us that most of her money has gone into financing her own

films, basically all of which have bombed. Her cottage was given to her by her husband, and she refuses to sell it, even though the studio is in financial trouble. They want to buy the land, they want to subdivide it, they want to know, repurpose it, all that stuff, And he says she won't even sell her backyard, which she never uses. It's not fair. It's not fair. Give you give us our land. Norah Chandler, Yes, I'm really glad the show brought that up. The

insanity of that house in the middle of the lot. I was like, that is so odd that that's a thing and now it makes a total a ton of sense. She owns this huge amount of acreage I guess in the middle of the most valuable land in all of California, which is a movie studio land, and she won't sell it to them. Yeah. Colombo is talking to the head of the props department and complementing him on his record keeping. He's like, Wow, if the if only the LAPD kept records as

well as you people do, we would we would solve every crime. And I was like, oh gosh, how do you need to put my head between my knees or Second, Nora sends word that she wants to meet with him in Edith Head's office, and Erica has a tiny, tiny orgasm and goes, oh my Godhead and this Edith Heads in the head is okay, be cool, be cool. You get to see Edith Head be cool. Were you cool? I was not? I was I was not cool.

Not cool. So first of all, they walk up to just the most enormous, giant, glossy red doors and I'm like, what is this? And then the door's open and you you're entered into like the Edith Head's costume department. And I was just like this is this is so much better than I would have paid money to see this. Oh yeah, So Lieutenant Columbo walks in. He sees women in law er everywhere because I guess Edith is costuming some sort of just costuming a folly's yes, also film, and he's

like ogling the ladies. He can't, he doesn't know where to look. He's like, oh, I feel uncomfortable. Yura sticks her head out of Edith's office and goes, Lieutenant, come in here, quit ogling the models. Joking with him. He walks in there, she flirts with him. She tells him, Okay, I have to admit I've been lying to you. She says, Jerry's been blackmailing me. He has stuff on me. I didn't want to tell you because I knew that would make me look suspicious.

And then she suggests that Columbo get Jerry's file on her. She's like, I want you to read the file so you know everything he has on me. That way, the suspicion will no longer be on me. Like, clearly, I don't care. Do you know those are actually Edith Head's oscars that are on the desk in this shot? Yes? I did, like it's clearly her office, right, I don't I don't know that she had her oscars on her desk that way. I think she had them on

a shelf. I've seen pictures four, but they lined them up on the front of her desk, so that like when Lieutenant Colombo comes inside and his head comes out and bless her. She's not an actress, that's not what

she's here for. She's just playing in her head. So she just shows like some sketches to Nora, and she's like, how about this outfit with this, you know, with the chiffon, and they're they're discussing outfits, and then she's she leaves right, So she's only in the scene for like fifteen seconds, and then he goes, is that who I always see at the Academy awards? That lady? And she's like, yes, that's Edith Head. She's won all those oscars, all right. So we cut to

Jerry's office at Nora's request. It's a point that we haven't quite made though that Nora you would expect her to be perhaps a diva, but she appears to be very well liked except for the except for the one execute who's mad that she won't sell him her land like. She seems basically pretty polite on set. She's not nasty to people. She's a little bit high strung, but she is an actress. The crew seems to genuinely like her. Even

Kevin Bacon and Kira Sedgwick are weird. Everyone's a little weird. Yeah in Hollywood. Yeah, I agree that that's a very good point. She's she seems very professional. So we're in Jerry's office. Colombo is there with Nora, Simmons and Jerry all gathered, and Columbo can't find anything new in Jerry's file. It's exactly what Jerry told him it was earlier. It's just you know, the stuff about her husband dying, you know, blah blah blah, blah blah. And Nora walks over to Jerry and she says, where's

the new stuff? And Jerry says, what are you talking about? She goes the Italian film. She declares she doesn't care what happens to her. She just wants to find Jean's killer. And Jerry rolls his eyes and takes out the proof, and Nora confesses to everything about the Italian swindle right, and Colombo is confused. As to why she would do this. He goes, miss Chanler, do you understand what this is? Gonna do? This is? And she goes, yes, I know, Please give it to

Simmons. So Simmons takes it, and he happily tears up the evidence and says he doesn't care. Norah told him all about this ten days prior, long before the attempt on Jerry's life, and they have reached an arrangement, which, by the way, the TV show will never elaborate on. What is the arrangement? Is she gonna pay them back? No, But doesn't it seem like he and she are an item? Yeah, I think she's paying him back in flesh in flesh. Flesh in fleshly favors, to be

clear, Like he seems genuinely, very very smitten with her. This is not a sordid casting couch situation on his end anyway. Like he's He's like, yeah, I love her. I'm going to forgive her anything she does because I love her. There's no moment in the film, even when she's doing bad things that she's not kind of charming, like, she seems to

genuinely be a fairly nice person. Yeah, And by the way like n Baxter is fifty when she made this, which I know in nineteen seventy three, made you a crone, But she's gorgeous, like absolutely stunningly beautiful. So just to be clear, what this is saying is that even if Jerry did try to blackmail Nora with this information, she wouldn't have been scared by it because Simmons already knew about it, so she would have had no reason

to try to kill Jerry. This is clearing her name from that attempted murder. Jerry smugly claims to still have more on Nora, but Nora calls him a bore and leaves Simmons in her wake. Very strong neckerchief game from Mel Ferrara in the scene. Did you notice that? I noticed that too. He's wearing like a denim shirt but like a really like a kerchief. It's not an ascot, it's a kerchief. It's a kerchief. It is a

neckerchief. Some of the dandier looks I do enjoy in the seventies, like the men's looks had like two waves, like really unappealing and weird and boxy or dandy ish, and the dandy looks were fantastic, we love this, We love a Dandy. We cut to Norah's where has Paul writes here her gay man servant answers the door to admit Colombo. Am I wrong? That guy is okay? So the man servant you're talking about is the costume assistant, right, the one who's helping her put on her Yeah, yeah,

oh yeah yeah, the full Poland. I love it because, like it's obviously not set out loud, but it's very clear what is happening here. He is using his wrists to act. Let's put it that way. He's like, oh my god, hello, detect him. The risk acting was very important for gay representation in the sixties and seventies and eighties. It really was all about the risk. He was doing the full John Waters. It is so the gay manservant, Paul rights, I think he's someone from the

studio. I think he's like a costume associate from the studio. He worked with Edith. He admits Columbo, and Nora tells him to make himself at home while she gets out of the costumes that she's been trying on. Right, So Colombo makes himself at home. He goes to a TV in the Lunai, I think, and turns it on and look at lo and behold there's an old Nora Chandler movie on TV that he's actually never seen before. And he's so shocked. He's like, I'm with Nora Chandler and there's a

Noura Chandler movie on TV. So he starts to watch it, and on screen, Nora in this like full on, hard nosed detective drag right, like she's playing Sam Spade in a movie exactly yeah, places a phone call and explains that she put on in the sky so that anyone who saw her would think she was a man. Columbo looks up at photos of Nora and her late husband. He seems to have a realization. Oh yeah, okay, I think I figured something out here. Doesn't let us in on it,

but he's got something. But he's got something. Nora then appears. She's in a fabulous split leg and I understand the words I just said were fabulous and split leg. I know that sounds incongruous, but it's not. It is fabulous. It is a midnight blue pants suit with magenta lining that has been paired with a thick gold metal belt that Paul says, looks more like a headdress. The belt. It's one of those I don't know what it would be called. It's like it's like chains and it's gathered into a

big thing in the c Yes, you remember it. I love it. I think it's so fabulously seventies. It's the seventies, man. You gotta have glitter, gold, gild. It's got to be otherwise seventies more. They head out and Columbo explains that he's heard some more about that flat tire. He says there was nothing wrong with it, which means that the tire was intentionally flattened by someone, which means that Gene was actually the target of

the murder and not Jerry. So somebody knew Gene would then borrow Jerry's car and drive it to Jerry's house, right right. Nora insists that Jeane's death has to be a mistake. Look literally, no one hated Gene. It's impossible. And yet and everyone hated Jerry. He is obviously the target. And now I have to go and do my press, So if you'll excuse me, I said good day, I said good day. We cut back to Nora on set. She's filming a scene where she's being chased by the

police because subtlety wasn't really a thing. I didn't really worry about that. After the scene, she rushes off set and she heads to the bookstore where Jerry is signing autographs that night. Remember in the beginning, Jane told us Jerry had to be at that bookstore every single night that week. Jerry walks out of the bookstore and Nora hits the gas. She tries to run him

down in the parking lot. It's a great moment here where like the car is speeding and it's obviously just two different pieces of film mashed together because Jerry just kind of disappears like a ghosts as the car goes by. Aha. He is also standing like a good two feet away from the car, like it's not even closed. Yeh. Look, she takes a while to wind up for a slap, and she gives people at a wide berth when she's bearing down on them in the car. Okay, so she does it.

Yeah. Colombo was called to the scene of the crime, and we hear that Jerry is fine, a little scratched up, Like the implications he like threw himself out of the way of the car, and Columbo seems to have another realization. He's having realizations on top of realizations now and yes, he says, do you are you a shrine? Did have a shriness ring? And did you find a shriness ring? Okay? Audience, Like, what what would be the equivalent today if someone if you were like, are you

are you a shiner? Is anyone in here a shriner? Like? Is anyone in here an influencer? I need an influencer? Does anyone here I need someone with over two hundred thousand Instagram followers? Is anyone in here an influencer? I feel way more comfortable with over five hundred k. But if you over two hundred k, we can talk. Okay. We cut to

Colombo interrupting Nora, who's shooting yet another scene in her movie. She is now in the costume that she will end the movie in, which is a brown two piece Maxi dress that kind of has the pattern similar to that of a traditional bandana on it. I would say this is perhaps the worst outfit in the film. I agree, I agree, this is It's unfortunate that Anne Baxter has to end on this note. I wish they'd given her something a little bit it makes her look old in a way that nothing else has

made her look. You know what it is, it's not old, is matronly. She looks matronly. She looks rich and old, which is better than old. But she looks like it's it's not a good look. So Columbo interrupts the scene. He tells her about Jerry's accident, and she goes, oh my god, I'm so taugh, I'm so worried. That's awful. And he tells her, well, you know, he's unconscious, so we can't even ask him if he saw who tried to hit him. He's severely hurt. And she goes, what and he goes, yeah, well

you know, we can't. We can't ask and and she goes, god, I guess this means that Jean's death was an accident. After all. She just can't help herself, right, she asked to she has to lead the detective where she wants him to go. Colombo says, all right, we need some privacy, and he sends everyone else away. He tells Nora that, look, Jerry contacted me. He said he was onto something new. He says, he wanted to meet me to tell me about it.

When he was struck by the car, and Columbo tells Nora that an envelope marked NC was found in Jerry's pocket, and he shows her what was inside, a shriner's ring. Nora shits her pants. She doesn't actually, but that is what her face tells us. She does. My Aunt Baxter really does do a perfect shitting my pants face. It is the set of an Activita commercial up in there, right, Like she has like one eye twitching

in the other, and like there's a vain bulging from her forehead. The animal instinct is taken over of like I have to get out of here before anyone smells the fact that I just shit my pants, right ah, Which, honestly, if you are going to shit your pants, that is the perfect outfit in which to shit your pants in. It is it is canonically

poop brown. No one will see it. They might smell it, they might catch a whiff before they see it, but no one will see a damning Nora tells him, well, she has no idea what that would possibly be about, and Colombo excuses himself, apologizing for interrupting her shooting. I'm so sorry, miss Chandler, I'm so sorry. This is awful oh, the whole thing is awful. Nora says, I'm sorry, Detective Columbo,

but I'm not feeling well. I need to head home. If anyone heard something, that was Erica slapping her palm to her to her forehead like a Scarlett Harra in a scarlettle haraw moment she was in the moment she was feeling it. I got the vapors sometimes just I do it just for you.

I perform just for you. The thing I love on Anne Baxter is that she she speaks every sentence like she supposed to run out of brook Yeah, hello, Paul, I'm so happy to be here, So the last word is always truncated, especially when she's pretending to be upset, like I'm sorry, Detective simply not relieve very well. She runs out of the studio. She heads all the way back to her cottage, right her tiny little fourteen bedroom cottage on the lot. She bursts in. She rushes all the way

to the doors of her lenai overlooking the garden. You will remember. She opens the doors of her garden just as the lights to her house are turned on. She spins around, looking like a teenager cop masturbating. She finds Colombo, there, Detective Candon, woman run around in the dark in your own house anymore without being followed by the police. Can a woman sprint off set in costume without being suspicious? Cant a woman just open French doors out

into her lunai without anyone looking at her like she's crazy. Colombo says that he knows that she killed Jean Davis, and he's there to arrest her for it. You know what I can, I take it back and do my best Colombo, Okay, and you're like, oh good, I'm glad. I'm glad we got to have this. It's great. There's nothing I like more than you're doing an impression of someone that that you're like. You like half tribe also half just turned it into some kind of like cookie Monster voice

a performance art piece. Yes, ah now no, I'm in my head, damn it, poop. I just pictured Cookie Monster in a jacket like Colombo. That would be fucking amazing. I'm sorry, I think you killed the lady. I think you ate the cookies. She asked him what he's doing there, and Columbo says, I know you killed Jean Davis, and I'm here to arrest you for it. Has that a decent Colombo, decent Columbus. Ha ha, it's a little cookie Monster. It's a little Colombo

by way of cookie monsters. Sprig of cookie monsters. There Ah Cookie saying you bort Lady Christ. She tries to brazen her way through me. Killed Jean, but I loved Jean. Jeane was my assistant. She was my assistant for she was my faithful friend. And he bears down on her. When Jerry said he had more on her, Colombo thought he was bluffing,

but her body language suggested that there might be more to it. Right, So he's like, I could tell by the way you were sorry, we do my Columbo ready, I could tell by the way you are looking that you there has to be an episode of Sesame Street at some point where Cookie Monster and Peter Falk solve a crime. Right, that has to be a thing. We have failed as a society if that is not a thing. Yeah, if we did not, now it's too late. We can't go back. Well, Cookie still with us, though, if we could get

Cookie Monster doing Colombo. So Colombo is like, listen, I guess there might be more to the blackmail. I think you might have had a secret that Jane might have known about, and that's why you killed Jane, to stop her from revealing whatever secret that was to Jerry. And then the fountain when I noticed it wasn't running before, remember, And then she's like, I've told you, Detective, it's a prop. It's a prop from a

film. And he's like, yeah, but I talk to my friend at the Props apartment and I found out that you had ordered it the day after your husband's death. Right, what a weird fucking thing to do. My husband's dead. We write to you know, Joe at the apartment and be like, remember that fountain from that movie I was in forty five years ago? Can you bring it over my bungalow? Please? Can? I? Can I tell you my favorite Anne Baxter line reading of the entire entire episode,

please do so. Columbo is like, you know that the fountain. It bothered me because there was no water. You know, most people like the sound of water running, and there wasn't any water running, and most people like that sound. And it cuts to and Baxter and she goes, well, I don't this maniacal expression on her face like, ah, he's handed me all I need to prove that I am not the killer. So

now he says he knows why the fountain doesn't run. In order to lay the water line, someone, someone would have had to dig up the lawn. That's the best I could do. That is the very good. It's solid. It's solid with the audience can't tell. The listeners can't tell as I'm doing a hunched over. I'm doing that the body perfectly. It's just a voice that is failing me. Your impersonations are more physical than vocal. Sometimes you really you throw yourself fully into it. I can't you feel the

moment they have to be because I can't do any voices. It's not true, all right. Norah's face falls. She knows she's done. She heads to the bar. She pours herself a drink. She offers Columbo one as well, and he explains, I was just playing hunches that managed to bluff

you with the story about the Shrins ring. But you know, it occurred to him while he was watching her movie that she was dressed as a man, and the night her husband died, someone had claimed to have seen her husband get in a fishing boat, but in the dark from a distance, it it been Nora herself and Nora says it was it was detective. It was that fateful night her husband, who constantly cheated on her, brought a gumad into her house. You'll bring a guman into my house, into this

house we share, into my bed. They had a huge fight. She hit him on the head with a bottle, seemingly accidentally killing him. It was not a premeditated murder. It was a murder and a fit of passion and rage. She buried him in the backyard, and Jane knew about it, dying to know how these two women, who combined might weigh two hundred and ten pounds, dug up the backyard to bury a fully grown man into it in there and covered it back up and resotted the whole thing by Dawn.

I presume Gene help. It has to be how Gene knows right that, yeah, Jane helped to bury the body or something, which would imply that she also has some skin in the game as far as keeping it covered. Yeah, some culpability or even her interpretation. Nora in a fit of rage just like had that rage strength and did it all herself. And then the next day was like, so we're not gonna talk about Gerald anymore, and she's like, and Jean's like, what do you mean? Where did

Gerald go? And she's like, Gerald went to a farm upstate where he could play with other Geralds all day, if you get my meaning. She just tears up the lawn with their bare hands, like the Hulk rows the body like John Crawford and mommy dearest, just pulling up, pulling up roses. I'm not mad at you, garden, I'm mad at my husband. So Jeane very calmly says, I'll get a coat and we'll go, and Columbo leads her out in a wide shot as the garden fountain slash grave marker

is in the foreground, and the credits play the crime is solved. What a fun show? What a fun fucking show? Can I tell you too? Maybe I wasn't giving the show enough credit for like going deep on the

crimes, but I was genuinely shocked at the reveal. Not the reveal that she killed her husband, because I kind of figured that out earlier, but like the reveal that Jane knew she killed her husband and that was the actual motive for killing Jean, because I I think I had just written it off as like Jene probably knew about other like financial stuff like da da da.

It never occurred to me, and that's probably stupid. It probably was much more obvious to other people that like, oh, that's why she killed Jean. That's a legit fucking reason to kill someone. Yeah, no, I didn't. I didn't catch it either. Like the show, and there's there's like little red herrings in the show, and there's little clues that I just cut out just for ease of like retelling, but like it's genuinely a show

where there's not a wasted word, Like everything actually means something. And I'm sure like a more seasoned, like learned Columbo viewer would be like, oh, that fountain, that fountain, that that fountain something like. But I

actually wasn't. It just like flew right by me the first time, and then at the end when it came back, I was like, oh dang, yeah yeah, And like obviously that's why, even though she's in financial streets, she's not going to sell that house because her fucking dead husband is under it, so she can't sell it. So she has to pretend like she's super into that house and like can't sell it back to anyone for sentimental

reasons. All right, so stick around. We will be right back with our random observations and final rankings for Requiem for a Falling Star after these messages for all you non patrons out there, and we're back Erica, do you have any Do you have just a couple more things? Just just just one more thingful? So there's a few shots in this where she has like she picks up a phone and makes a dramatic phone call, right, and like

everything Anne Baxter does is like ten out of ten. And but there's the the phone in her wet bar is one of those elegant old tiny ones that have like an ivory handle, and like delicately, I just miss landlines so much. They are so elegant. It looks like a phone you should be talking on while in like a like like a like a silk penoir with with marabou feathers, Yes, lounging in your bed eating bonbonds. Yes, it's so elegant. I like the way she like just gently places it on the

receiver. Everything about that phone and landlines in general, I am showing my whole ass today. Between the carbon paper and the landlines, I'm gonna get an AARP notice in the mail today. We just waxed podic about landlines last week for how did ops I married an ex murderer? Did wait? I forgot I'd forgotten that because I'm old. I'm so old, I don't know what we talked about last week. We are on one about landlines. Uh

did you notice in this so there's two cars that feature very prominently. There's Jean's car and there's Jerry's car, and they're both so tiny and low to the ground. Like. I don't like being in cars. It's It's part of the reason I live in New York. I like to be not in cars as often as I can be. But those little roadster death traps. Every time they got in one, I was like, Ooh, I don't

like this. It makes me nervous. Well, also, mel Ferrara is pretty tall and so like, yeah, we don't see him getting in or out of that car, but we see Jeane getting in and I was I literally the whole time was thinking like, how does mel Ferrera even fit in a car that side? Because that woman, who's like a good six inches shorter than him, is like hitting her head against the ceiling of it. Reminded me of that Rock Hudson moment and that in Yes, Yes, where

they get into the car and he can't fit in it. Yeah. A couple of lines that I love and they both come from fallon the suspiciously Young former studio head. Yeah. One is this is all in the same scene. He's talking to Colombo and he goes, take my advice, stay away from actors. They'll kill you. Excellent, very good. And the other thing he says to him after the detective says something like I wouldn't have typecasted her as a killer, and he he turns to the detective and he goes,

well, I would never type test you as a detective. The shade girl. What is this? Oh, it's my gauntlet, Let me throw it. Can I share two Nora Chandler lines that I like because she has some good birds in this episode. Okay, So the first one is when they're in Jerry's office and she's demanding that he show all the evidence and you know, she's pulling the fast one, and he says, no, I still know something. He leans forward and he taps his forehead and he goes,

you can't get a search warrant for what's in here? And she says, you can't get bus fair for what's in there, very solid. And the other one is in Edith's head's office when rumpled Columbo comes in with all of his clothes. It don't fit, and she says, why don't you have your wife take you shopping for your anniversary? Take a look at suits, shirts, slacks, socks, shoes, right down the list. Have you considered an investment in personal hygiene products? A hair brush, mike,

for god's sake, met a razor? What else can you get? What if she just kept talking? Belts, buckle spats, perchips, don't forget the kerchiefs, detective, for god's sake, man, get a kerchief, please, detective, Never forget a kerchief. There's a whole bit at the end where Colombo knows she's getting nervous because she's drinking on set. That same high waisted man Paul gives her, gives her like a drink on set and calms her down. And so he goes and talks to him because Colombo does,

and he's like, does she usually drink on the job? And he goes, Never, she is a consummate professional. She never drinks on the job unless she has to, unless she's under pressure. And I'm like, so, like all the time then, right, all the time? Then all the time? Like, yeah, so she's an alcoholic. Right. It was the weirdest nineteen seventy three logic of like, she's definitely not an alcoholic. She does drink at work though, yes, during the day of

the time. Anytime she feels the slightest bit of pressure, she takes a show like anyone would. Yeah, like everyone in nineteen seventy three does. That is the most normal thing in the world. I don't even know why we're still talking about this. Frankly, one very minor thing. When Columbo drives onto the lot, do you notice the man in full indigenous costume? Yeah, I biking. I always love when, like movies and TV shows do this when they show like the background of a studio lot and it's like

like a person dresses Abraham Lincoln in the background. Excellent. I just have one And this is just one more thing, Just one more thing. What just d cookie have one more? And that is that the music at the very very end of the show is far too jaunty for what we're looking at. It is, as you remember it ends on a slow fade out of like her ex husband's grave essentially her backyard with the fountain in it. But the music is like, dude, do do do dude? Whoa you can

get a grave here? Calm the fuck down music, learn get a cold case finally being solved, I think twelve years after it. Yeah, killed, like definitely decomposed corpse under her fountain. Can music not be like la la la la la la la la la la la sounds like the sounds like the smurfser singing Paul, how shall we rank this glorious episode of Columbo Requiem for a Falling Star? One to ten sheets of carbon paper the only way

to copy AA. One to ten men in high waisted pants, pants so high waisted I could see their balls in their mouth, pants so high wasted that you don't need suspenders, just need a pair rubber bands. I'll do it. One to ten master classes in slapping, what you God want to do is do a full forty five second wind up. You want to get You want to give a lot of air. You want to just get as much air as possible between you in the face before you what you have in

the master class on slapping is you have four You have four units. First is the wind up, ah, Second is the contact uh huh, third is the is the is the rebound, and fourth is the bon. You have to say something after slapping the person, you know, Yeah, you need to follow through though. It's like a good golf swing. You have to follow all the way through. Otherwise it's it's barely a slap. It's barely it's a tap. Then it's a left tap. Frankly, how about

one to ten? You never expected to meet a legend raising your arms like a Vita on the balcony, ha ha ha. I think for all the Anne Baxter has done for us, we should do this for her, because I do now you do, never expecting me to legend, She's not wrong. Yeah, for the absolute fucking queen, that is an Baxter. Do you want to go first or shall I go first? I'll go first on this one. I'm gonna rate it pretty high. I think it's fair like it does fall down in some of the ways we normally care about. I

cannot recall a single person of color. There was extras. There was a black woman and Eatith's head office walking out. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't. That's great, that's not really great. I know, it's nineteen seventy three, and so like what even what the fuck even was the world in nineteen seventy three, But like it's a lot of white people being white at each other. There is some decent female like roles. I mean, obviously like Norah Chandler, excellent role, excellent role,

Gene. I would say, it's even a pretty good role until she dies. Yeah, sadly she's the victim, so she only has about ten minutes of time with the episode, yeah, or I think even less than that, honestly. But they do talk about something other than Jerry. They talk about They talk about like Nora and her career and Jean's career too. In a way, there's Edith's Head. I mean, like, yeah, you get to see the greatest of all time costume designer in her office with her

oscars being Edith Head. That gives it automatic points for me. Frankly, I think gay representation. We have the we have the one, we have the gay man Service, we have the Paul Lynde costume assistant. I'll let you talk about him. I'm gonna go high. I'm going to give it a six. Yeah, I'm gonna give it a six because again, there's no people of color at all in this thing, which sucks. But like I frankly wasn't expecting anything and I was not surprised. So but yeah,

I'm going to give it a six out of ten. Uh, you never expected to meet a legend, That's right. I think it's so great that you get to see Anne Baxter in this role, like, and she's she's she is like an age Norma Desmond is in Sunset Boulevard and she is full of freaking Norma desmonding it and I just love her so much. So yeah, six out of ten. You never expect to meet a legends, how about you, Paul? Uh? Yeah, I agree. Like, by the way, I don't think I wrote in the this is nineteen seventy three.

I don't think we ever said that in the beginnings, which is on me. That's on me. I'll take I'll take the l on that nineteen seventy three this came out, so it's pretty far before our usual timeline, right, we usually start in nineteen eighty, so it's you know, so, yeah, like you said, I was not expecting there to be a

large number of people of color with significant roles. There are actually fewer roles in it than I expected in a murder mystery, But I think that's because it's not a who done it, so they don't have to present you with a bunch of potential suspects. It's just Columbo working his way through it, which kind of like takes that, Yeah, that's true. I never thought about that. There's very few people in it really yeah, so I think

it ages really well for something from nineteen seventy three. I mean, these are sins of omission, not sins of like horrible representation or horrible stereotypes or anything. Right. The gay answer I loved. I mean, I don't know if that guy just was gay and couldn't keep it in the tank, or if he was an actor that was hired and decided to make a choice. Who knows, but the wrist acting was fabulous. I loved it.

I actually tried to look up his name, and I don't think he's listed on IMDb, which makes me think like everything was a lot looser back then, that it was just just like Anne Baxter's dresser, that they were like, can you just come in here? And say this real quick just wasn't a thing maybe, I mean, yeah, it's feel a little inside baseball, right because they have Edith hid in it, so it could be something who works in the costume department for real, and like I used to be

an actor? Can I do it? And they're like, okay, sure charge, yeah, sure, go do it. Yeah. Uh but yeah, and you're right, like Nora Chandler is a great a great role. Like part of the thing with Colombo is that he often doesn't enter until after the first act of the the episode they're doing. So Norah Chandler probably has as much, if not more screen time than Colombo in this. She has more screen time than he does. Yeah, she's in the in the whole

thing, and she's serving the entire time, the entire time. Yes, indeed, so you said six, Yeah, I'm gonna agree with you. I'm going to say a six out of ten. And then he never expected to meet a legend except she runs out of stead before she gets to the end. You never expect. I think that was just the seven packs a day they were all smoking back bench. Colombo just seems like a great comfort watch if if you're into it, I mean I might watch another one,

one or two. I mean there's one with Donald Pleasants that's supposed to be amazing. It's apparently considered to be like the best Columbo episode ever produced about like a like a wine maker or something, and Donald Pleasance is in it. So I don't know. Maybe I'll watch them this weekend with my mom. That seems a good, like lovely weekend to have. It sounds like she would make her very happy. I have a question for you, obviously, like the we knew who did it kind of from the jump, but

did you still think this was a good murder mystery? Yeah? I like the how catchum aspect of it. The show did a good job of planting a lot of clues that I, again, as a not seasoned columb you er did let go by. But then when in doing the recap, I was like, oh no, they actually planted that, like the fact that she killed her husband, and like the fact that at the end the shriner's ring makes her concerned. Oh no, he discovered my husband's body. That's

that's the thing. And it's all like it's guessing on Columbo's part, but it's educated guessing. It's smart guessing and like they let the character be intelligent, but it doesn't feel like they pulled a rabbit out of the hat at the end and there was no possible way you could have come up with it. Yeah, right, Like there's obviously some leaps, I don't think.

I don't think the first time anyone watches this, no one is thinking she definitely killed her husband and underneath that fountain, Yeah, yeah, like there's a lot there, but like there is a permission structure within it that makes sense and you can understand how this super genius detective did figure it out right, It's true, I will say I still I was surprised that I was surprised by the ending, the fact that like the tiny last piece of the

puzzle that Jean knew she killed her husband and that's why she killed Jean. I was, I actually out loud one ooh. That's why I agree. It's totally fun. It's a total fun watch. It's it's decent, you know, decent murder mystery. I can't wait to get to more like authentically murdery mystery things later this month, Yes, because I feel like the first two have been sort of softball murder mystery been softer. Next two I think we have are hard boiled, hard boiled mysteries. Speaking of I am going

to give a palate cleanser. I think you were going to give the same one. Right, It's poker Face, Yeah, I mean, look, watch Colombo. They are all available on like multiple streaming services. You can watch this on Amazon, you can watch this on TV or whatever. You can watch it, watch it on Peacock, Peacock. Yeah, They're all over the place, so you can watch it on any streaming service. But Peacock also has poker Face, which is has only one season. It's got

an arc. But also every episode has a murder mystery or a mystery of some sort that Natasha Leone solves and it is truly excellent. I think yeah, definitely all right, So that is the end of our show. Everyone listening can follow us on Instagram, they can follow us on Twitter, you can follow us on threads. We have a tea public shop. Please go

and buy shirts from us for Spotify users. We put questions and polls out about the episode, and we would love it if you leave us a five star of view and Apple Podcasts or on any podcasting platform that you may use. If you do that, just like podfan nineteen seventy five, did you do that? You let us know you did, and we send you a that age Well tote bag. That's how we roll here at that Age Well. The tote bag will also have evidence of a murder inside and you get

to solve the murder. Aren't you lucky? That aged Well is produced and edited by Paul Kaola Hey by this gay man servant right over here. You guys couldn't see it, but he did some risk acting just now. It was a risk acting. Yeah. If you want to suggest films TV for us to watch that match with our monthly themes, follow us on Instagram. We did go rogue today. Yeah, but we did pick a lot of

stuff from Instagram this month for Murder Mystery March. If you want to vote in one of the films that we cover, you can join our Patreon. Every patron gets to vote in an exclusive monthly poll to determine one of our subjects. That's not next week, but the week after will be our Patreon pick for the month. So head on over to patreon dot com slash That

aged Well podcast to find out more. And speaking of which, some tears on our Patreon come with thanks from a podcast character, and today we're hearing from the great great great grandfather of Peter Falk, mister Harvey Firestem. Oh Hello, hello, Hello. How did you know about me and Peter being related? That's not usually known. You're smartie. It's so lovely to see you again. And on the day you're doing Colombo, you little twinkies.

Now. I once pitched Showtime on an all gay reboot of Colombo with me and the lead. I called it Colombo Homo Side Division. Yeah. Yeah, you thought you were the first person who heard Bill Holden say Homo side You weren't you? Weren't your little your little hoo cupcakes. Okay, Showtime bought it, you know, but you know they fired me and after they

were done with it, it became Homeland. But anyway, I'm here to thank Sunshine, Sunshine, thank you for being a patron of that aged Well do you know that song from Pippin and if we all good, spread a little Sunshine. They asked me to play Bertha in the last pip In revival, but I took one look at the aerial act requiet and said, no, thank you. You want to see Harvey Firesteine doing tricks while wrapped in

silk. You can hope for an invitation to my boudoir. So thank you, Sunshine, keep shining, keep smiling, and knowing you can always count on your uncle Horvey. He is, he is a font of theatrical stories he does, he does. I would never I would listen to an entire album of him singing Pippin. Yeah, so would I. I would not, not that I have anything to do with it. Would not want to be the one to have to produce the noises for an entire singing album. Aha, No, no, no, we should do that. Hey everyone,

we should do that. Right, let's do that, Doug. Let's get me to an E N T first and figure out what kind of things we can put on my vocal course to protect them for whatever is happening back there. All right, Erica? Any final thoughts on Colombo? Cookie would like to know why murder weapon up the man's butt? Oh? They never did that on Colombo? I don't think. No, what do you mean,

never put a murder weapon up a man's butt. I don't even know what you're talking about, Detective. I would never do such a thing. Why would I put an axe handle up a man's behind to kill him. That's insane. That's absolutely insane. You know what else is insane? Cookie crumbles. Those are delicious, aren't they? They drive me crazy? Anyway, nice trench coat. I have to go why I have to pause the podcast and tell you something. OKAYI die, remember dying? Okay, I

cannot wait. Please. I just had a snapshot of a dream that I had. I don't know why, and I don't remember any context, So just the snapshot is all you're gonna get because it's all I remember. And on a beach somewhere, but it was like a nude beach, but all the men had tucked, like deeply cuffed their penises, so you only saw like the penis weirdly, I don't know why, from the back. Like everyone's penis was so long it like actually came out through their butt their back

butt cheeks. So when I was looking at were butts with just tiny penis heads poking out. That's a dream I had. Why was I on a beach with is it a ken thing? Kend you wanted a vagina that's what you were in. It wasn't even a thing. I noticed. I was like Anyway, moving on, here we are again. Looks like they're turtle heading with their dicks on Vangina Cove. I love my vacations to Vagina Cove.

The Grunnion are running on Nachina Cove. The Managina Cove Grunion Run is not to be this just don't go on Spring Bridge