Unfinished Business

Unfin Police lieutenant, Barney Kale, finally announces that he will soon retire, after one final case. He soon travels to Juniper Lake, near Cabot Cove, to solve the one murder that has yet to be resolved - that of a close friend who was drowned ten years ago. Upon visiting the cabins where the murder took place, Kale invites several people who were connected to the investigation, including Jessica's friend Seth, to meet with him at the lakes. Concerned, Jessica accompanies her friend, and no sooner do the pair arrive when a guest at the cabins is found dead, having been killed with a shotgun. Jessica finds herself investigating alongside Amos to find out whether the current murder is linked to the one Kale is seeking to resolve.

Not a lot of mystery here, though Hingle's tussling with Amos Tupper is fun. It's just ok, nothing standout: I found it just average, yet watchable due to characters. There are few things that don't make sense.

I give a lot of this episode 10 out of 10 stars. But the ending is so lame, I have to take off two stars. But the character actors are all wonderful, especially the guy playing the Sheriff. As usual, the technical elements are all very great. Great costumes, as always, fine photography, great Musical cues, wonderful sets and settings. Editing is sort of standard for television shows of that era. It was just as digital editing was coming in so there weren't a lot of abilities to do fancy edits easily and quickly as needed for a weekly TV program. I am now watching all of the episodes from DVDs I borrowed from the local library. It's a very big pleasure to not have the advertisements interrupting the flow of the story. And by the way, what fine acting by Angela Lansbury, as always. I was so glad to have seen her on stage in Sweeney Todd. But she was great right from the beginning, with Gaslight.

Wonderful to see a mini-Happy Days reunion with Erin Moran guest starring, alongside semi-regular Tom Bosley. Also British acting royalty Hayley Mills appears in an intriguing episode which kept us guessing until the end. The ending was a bit hasty and ludicrous sadly. It's as though the scriptwriter had no idea how to wrap up the final moment of the episode. It was all gripping up to the denouement, but then I felt let down.

This is the worst episode so far. The motive doesn't make sense, the crime doesn't make sense, and the scenario doesn't make sense. Sad, because the cast is star-studded and amazing.

A lot of Jessica Fletcher's cases take place in various exotic locales and just as many are close to home in Cabot Cove. This one was not too far from her home town. It also ties in to a murder 10 years earlier of a vacationing police detective.

In fact the detective on that case is in this area again and Pat Hingle and there's another murder of a recently released convict Erich Anderson with a shotgun. That's the thing about shotguns, there's no forensics with them.

There's a nice little stew of suspects that in the eyes of the local law also includes Dr. Seth Hazlitt who's also on the scene. The local law is Sheriff J.D. Cannon and on Angela Lansbury's list he's on it as well.

I was fooled on this one, but on reflecting the sequence of events no other outcome was possible.