Episode 8 - "We're Off to Kill the Wizard"
This is a great one - a real mix of a Agatha Christie locked-room mystery and an '80s me-decade capitalist story of greed. Jessica goes to Kansas to visit her relatives, and is invited by theme park operator Horatio Baldwin to come visit his macabre/medievil show (her nephew loves it, however). Horatio wants to license her books for a new ultra gory horror show. Jessica says no to the slimeball, who seemingly commits suicide in his locked office shortly afterward... except it's revealed he was hit from behind by something heavy before he was shot. Uh oh.
His widow (her fourth dead husband!) is the obvious suspect, and she hires Jessica, our resident murder expert, to defend her. Luckily, almost everybody we meet had a really good reason to hate Horatio and want him dead. Jessica has to solve the mystery of how the suicide was faked and escape while locking the door from within (and it's a doozy).
Jessica's nephew is a very young Joaquin Phoenix! He really hasn't changed very much. His on-screen sister is played by his real-life sister Summer. Horatio is the fantastic character actor James Coco, known to me for both Who's the Boss and Muppets Take Manhattan.
Episode 9 - "Death Takes a Curtain Call"
Another good one, mostly because of the great interplay between Jessica and a KGB agent (!). In this one, Jessica and a friend travel to Boston to see the Russian ballet which is in town. Jessica's friend happens to be a former ballet dancer himself, who defected long ago. The ballet is wonderful, but the finale is bigger than anyone expects: one Russian "minder" is found dead, and two ballet stars are missing, defected with the help of Jessica's friend.
A KGB agent is assigned to solve the murder and, if possible, un-defect the two dancers. The KGB agent turns out to be a cultured, funny, charming mountain of a man, every bit as clever as Jessica. They take a real liking to each other, and spar repeatedly throughout the episode, until the case is closed to the satisfaction of both.
The KGB agent is played by William Conrad, known best as a narrator due to his phenomenal voice (he is the narrator to Rocky and Bullwinkle; How the West Was Won; The Fugitive; Buck Rogers; Manimal, and much more) and also sometimes as an actor (the eponymous Fatman on the great show Jake and the Fatman; Nero Wolfe; Cannon). He really saves this episode from being typical '80s Soviet bait.
Episode 10 - "Death Casts a Spell"
This is one is gimmicky, but still kind of interesting: Jessica is called in to investigate the death of a hypnotist, who is stabbed to death in the middle of a session. Was it one of the six reporters he has hypnotized to prove he's no fake - and who remain hypnotized, like zombies, until the police play an audio recording of the dead man tell them to snap out of it? The whole idea is ridiculous, and insultingly stupid.
It gets seedy fast, though, with the dead man turing out to be a real cad and everyone having a motive to kill him dead as a beef. Not for the first time the victim more or less deserved it. Jessica interviews and questions and investigates and sorts out the evidence until she alerts the police to the real killer. I found myself interested despite myself.
Robert Loggia appears as the hotel owner who is firing the hypnotist for sleeping with his wife. The hypnotist himself is the great Jose Ferrer (Lawrence of Arabia, Dune, I Accuse!, much more).
Episode 11 - "Capitol Offense"
The episode opens with a Congressman having a confrontation with crooked colleagues, then dying of a seeming heart attack while a sneaky blonde takes microfilm photos. We cut to Jessica being visited by an agent of the Governor's office of Maine, asking her to fill in for the dead Congressman (!).
Things go south quickly (literally and figuratively), as it's discovered the dead Congressman's corpse was moved, staged, and Jessica begins to dig around and try to find out what is going on. There is a lot of dirty DC business going on - crooked lobbying, another murder, another Congressman is drugged and left in an alley, and everything (of course) revolves around money to be made. The show ends with a big Mr. Smith Goes to Washington callback, wherein Jessica speaks before Congress, exposing the corruption. Shortly after, the murder of the Congressman is finally wrapped up.
The detective who helps Jessica (or is it the other way around?) is Herschel Bernardi, character actor and one-time star of the early '70s show Arnie. The fellow Maine Congressman who Jessica befriends is Stephen Macht, who is great in this episode. He's currently known for Suits, but has been in many things over the years; it's worth noting that he was so popular in his role here that he was asked back and goes on to play no less than FIVE different roles on Murder She Wrote (!).
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