This episode first aired May 8, 1995.
Writer Peter S. Fischer who scripted the likes of “Publish or Perish”, “A Friend in Deed” and “Negative Reaction” hated the way his script for this episode was rewritten and objected to the casting of George Wendt so strongly that he used the pseudonym Lawrence Vail as his credit. Lawrence Vail was the name of the frustrated screenwriter in “Once in a Lifetime”.
My thoughts on this episode in chronological viewing order…
Norm!
Hmmmm. This first scene of him in the black trench coat is enough to convince me George Wendt has been horribly miscast here.
“Right,”agrees McVeigh after being reminded he actually co-owns the place. “Me and my brother.” Guess we know who’s getting murdered.
He doesn’t want his horse to win so he feeds it something. What? A drug – that could possibly show up on a blood test? He was smart, he’d have fed him two slices of that sausage and arugula pizza I had last night for dinner. Guaranteed he wouldn’t even finish the race.
What is it about horse racing that brings out the fancy hats in women?
Ooof, that cockney girlfriend. The actress evidently attended the Dick Van Dyke School for English Accents. Crikey!
Hmmmm. I don’t understand the confidence in this horse winning – unless the race is fixed in its favor, which it clearly isn’t. It would make sense if the horse was the favorite to win and it was fixed to lose. This is a nonsensical reverse scenario.
Also, not sure why McVeigh needs the horse to lose. So that his brother can get into even more debt? I mean, he’s already in debt so there’s your motive. This guy is unnecessarily complicating things – the mark of a sloppy killer.
Great disguise that beard.
Hey, it’s Kawalski!
Boy, his assumption that absolutely EVERYONE will clear out to deal with those pesky mice turns out to be conveniently correct. How lame.
Good thing he packed his getaway bike, like Adrian Carson in “Any Old Port in a Storm” who, coincidentally, also murdered his brother.
Ah, cue the backfiring Peugeot an intro Columbo.
The olde “the cop at the roadblock doesn’t recognize Columbo and assumes he’s a civilian”.
Again, more backfiring from the Peugeot. How much would it cost to get that car fixed?
Columbo getting over a case of food poisoning after eating some bad clams. I look forward to seeing how this doesn’t pay off later in the episode.
Mrs. Columbo made him some soup. He claims the chicken fat helped. Note at home for my followers with upset stomachs – Do NOT take chicken fat as a cure.
Clearly, Columbo isn’t buying McVeigh’s story. He’s downright patronizing him.
“That explains it. The parking valet.” Another classic. The murderer offering an explanation for something Columbo deems suspicious.
Holy! That is one big rat. And he handles it without gloves. Boy, if Columbo thought food poisoning was bad, he’s going to hate the bubonic plague.
Cue cheesy Godfather-esque music.
Wait a minute. Columbo claims he doesn’t speak Italian, yet we’ve heard him speak pretty good Italian in the past. I’m assuming he’s lying here.
Hang on. Columbo reacts after being informed he’s eating clams, yet if he speaks and understands Italian, he would know vongole is Italian for clams. Also, is this the presumed payoff for the food poisoning?
“Either you get him or I get him.” Columbo is under the gun.
How many variations of the This Old Man tune are we going to be subjected to over these later Columbos?
Aha! It’s the wrong type of mouse.
Aha! The valet doesn’t smoke.
Tip for future murderers out there: Get rid of the murder weapon once you’re done, somewhere far far away from where you live. Do NOT bury it in your backyard.
Fortelli demands a 51% stake in the farm. He’s wants to grow his own summer squash.
This is the slowest, least dynamic car chase I’ve ever watched.
“You look out the back window you see the guy next door mowing his lawn.” Could be worse. You could be looking out onto his bathroom.
The eyewitness sketch. The gold lighter. “You look out the back window you see the guy next door mowing his lawn.” The circumstantial evidence mounts.
“Oh, sir. Just one more thing?”
“No, lieutenant. There is no just one more thing.”
Like, but not as good as William Shatner’s character calling him out in a previous episode.
Columbo has stood him up. No, it’s a trap!
Boy, the way this plays out is awful. Columbo: “If only I could find the gun!”. Fortelli: “Guess I’ll have to kill him then.” McVeigh: “No, wait! I’ll tell you where to find the gun!”
And then Columbo exchanges the thumbs up with Fortelli confirming – as if you didn’t know – that it was all a ruse.
Ethics aside, the fact that Columbo resorts to this makes the back half of this episode a complete stage weight. Once Fortelli tells him he intends to make McVeigh pay one way or another, then everything else after this point is filler because Columbo proves totally inept and incapable of building a proper case against his suspect.
Also, in hindsight, why the need to kill Bruno Romano at all? What did he gain by killing off Bruno who would have been the #1 suspect in his brother’s murder?
Overall, not good. Not good at all. That’s two episodes in a row. Will next episode, “A Trace of Murder”, halt our skid?
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Awesome review! I agree with everything you said.
I wondered why Columbo suddenly couldn’t speak Italian and your explanation is the best!
I said Norm, too! 😄 George did too good a job on Cheers.
I would think a guy running a horse farm wouldn’t be that dressed up. I suppose he hires someone to do all the work? Seems odd.
The guy has the entire farm to bury a gun and he picks his backyard?
No way that confession stands up court!
I found this episode more enjoyable than the last one.
Yes, better than the last one because “Undercover” did not feel like a Columbo episode to me.
I also enjoyed Rod Steiger’s appearance. Most of my notes were me trying to follow what was going on.
Big Bro was a master of disguise. (That was a hamster disguised as a rat. Just check out what rats really look like… NYC. They are HUGE!)
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think Big Bro killed Little Bro because he wanted his inheritance money. Then he had to kill the loan shark so he would not come after him for the money plus he needed a fall guy for his brother’s murder. So he set up Little Bro to fail and then killed loan shark to get him out of the way.
Columbo climbs into car with the dead body, sitting right where the murderer sat. Come on man! Ashes in ash tray only proved it was a popular brand of cigarette, not that Big Bro did it.
That had to be a big enough bike for Big Bro. Like a mountain bike. They have wide tires and surely would have left tread marks leaving the scene.
Big Bro makes a very calm 911 call after shooting loan shark.
Mafia Man blackmails Big Bro into telling him and Columbo where murder weapon is, otherwise Columbo has no case he can prove.
I did like this Ep. I surprisingly liked Wendt even after a slow start with his trenchcoat and sunglasses in a California summer.
I didn’t think this was a great episode, but compared to the likes of “Undercover” and “No Time to Die”, it did enough.
I remembered this episode as being a lot better than it was. The idea of friendly old Norm playing a cold sociopathic killer is an interesting idea that quite didn’t work, and the convoluted script didn’t help. Still, it had its moments at least. As I recall, this is about the point where things start veering towards more bizarre murders and alibis that would be more at home in a campier show than Columbo. Can’t wait for the next one to see if I’m remembering right!
It’s going to veer even more bizarre?