Unfinished Business

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.

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.

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.

It's always pleasant to see which favorite actresses/actors from the past enliven this series with their guest appearances. Here, Don DeFore, much underrated generally, maybe because he's played so many likeable guys, turns in his usual good job.

This episode has the ingredients of a very good program, and it starts out well - a retired police detective, Barney Kale, sets out to show that his former coworker, Detective Dixon, did not have a natural drowning accidental death ten years ago, but was murdered.

There's the Maine setting, always a plus, assorted characters without much of an alibi, Jessica looking trim and efficient, lovable Seth. We find out about the backgrounds of a doctor, a businesswoman, a young opportunist and his wife, but practically nothing about the victim until the very end, so it's anybody's guess why poor Dixon was knocked off, if he didn't accidentally drown. Jessica, Amos and the Juniper Lake sheriff (wonderfully played in low-key style by J. D. Cannon) don't seem to exert themselves much to learn a thing about Dixon or any enemies he might have made.

The end is a big anti-climax. Don't want to give it away, but really, ask yourself, if you were Lt. Det. Barney Kale, would you have trekked to Juniper Lake to finish the "unfinished business"? HOW stupid is Kale? '

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.