Recap / Columbo S 07 E 01

Episode: Season 7, Episode 1
Title:"Try and Catch Me"
Directed by: James Frawley
Written by: Gene Thompson (story), Gene Thompson and Paul Tuckahoe (teleplay)
Air Date: November 21, 1977
Previous: The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case
Next: Murder Under Glass
Guest Starring: Ruth Gordon, Mariette Hartley, G.D. Spradlin, Mary Jackson, Charles Frank

"Try and Catch Me" was the first episode of the seventh season of Columbo.

Abigail Mitchell (Ruth Gordon, taking a break from being a high priestess of the Church of Satan) is an elderly mystery story novelist (an obvious Expy of Agatha Christie) of worldwide fame and renown. Four months ago her last living relative, her young niece Phyllis, drowned in a boating accident, leaving behind a husband, Edmund. The police wrote it off as an accident but Abigail is certain that Edmund, who radiates "smarmy prick" out of every pore, murdered her niece. And just to put a little more salt in the wound, Edmund inherited the rights to a play of Abigail's, which Abigail had long ago signed over to Phyllis as a present.

Abigail decides to take revenge and murder her nephew-by-marriage. She tricks Edmund into a false sense of security by making him her heir. Then she lures him into her large walk-in safe and slams the door shut, locking him in. Edmund, locked in an airless and sound-proofed safe for the whole weekend, suffocates.

It seems like an obvious case of death by misadventure, but Abigail doesn't count on Lt. Columbo of the LAPD, who wonders how Edmund got in the safe if the alarm was on, and why there's a piece missing from a piece of paper...

Mariette Hartley plays Veronica, Abigail's assistant. G.D. Spradlin plays her lawyer, Martin.

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Tropes:

• The Alleged Car: Another example of the Running Gag about Columbo's ratty old Peugeot, which is looking even rattier than usual with tears in the convertible top. After Columbo says it's "a French car, very rare," Abigail snarks "Oh yes, I can see why."
• Ambiguously Evil: The episode never resolves whether Edmund actually did murder Phyllis, so it's hard to tell if some of his actions are from smugness over having pulled off a murder, or him having bittersweet memories of his wife. Though, from observations Columbo has about the marriage, coupled with the smarmy smirk Edmund shoots Phyllis's picture, it seems to lean towards him being guilty.
• And Another Thing...: Usually a Once an Episode (or even more) from Columbo, but played with in this episode as it's done twice by two different characters.
  • First the maid. Abigail, who is frantic to find the keys after she panicked and hid them in the ashtray, asks the maid all sorts of questions trying to pry details out of her without letting on. The maid has no idea what Abigail is talking about, of course. Then as the maid is leaving she says "Just one more thing. There were some keys in the sand." The maid reveals that Veronica claimed them.
  • Then done by Abigail to Columbo. Abigail hands the car keys to Columbo and claims she found them under the rose bushes, which means Edmund must have dropped them. As a crestfallen Columbo is walking away, Abigail says, "Just one more question." When Columbo turns, she says, "Are you going to give up your murder theory?"
• Awful Wedded Life: Implied. When Abigail tries to paint Edmund as being a loving husband to Phyllis (even though she herself probably doesn't believe it), Columbo sees through the deception in seconds. Why? Because there are no pictures of her anywhere in the house.
• Bittersweet Ending: Although Columbo has to take in Abigail despite her sympathetic motives, the latter nonetheless takes her arrest with grace. Abigail then remarks rather soberly that if only Columbo had investigated her niece's death her murder of Edmund would have been unnecessary.
• Blackmail: After claiming the keys, Veronica blackmails Abigail into a raise and a spot accompanying Abigail on a luxury cruise. Amazingly, Abigail doesn't murder her, making Veronica only the second blackmailer on the show to survive after Karen from Any Old Port In a Storm.
• Chekhov's Gun: The two torn pieces of paper, which don't fit together, found in the safe along with Edmund's corpse. It turns out that they were the top and bottom of a standard 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper, specifically, the front page of Abigail's manuscript. Edmund tore the middle of the page out to use for his Dying Clue.
• Clock King: Abigail times the murder down to the second, carrying a stopwatch, making sure that Edmund is in the safe before Martin comes downstairs.
• Continuity Nod: When he hears that Abigail is going on a cruise, Columbo says that he and Mrs. Columbo went on a cruise and loved it. This was the plot to Columbo episode "Troubled Waters".
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: When Columbo arrests Abigail at the end, she posits the possibility that she wouldn't have had to resort to murdering Edmund if the lieutenant led the investigation behind her niece's death.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Columbo's eyes wander quite a bit when he visits Veronica's belly dancing class.
• Double Meaning: When talking about how Edmund (supposedly) tried to save Phyllis, Abigail says "I know what you did. I know everything that you did." Edmund is momentarily taken aback but Abigail brushes it off.
  • Abigail later tells Columbo, “Every character I’ve murdered knows exactly why they were murdered,” which isn’t just true for her fictional stories, but also something she specifically made sure Edmund knew.
• Dramatic Irony: Lampshaded. After she's caught, Abigail sadly notes that if only she had thought to come to someone as clever as Columbo to investigate her niece's death, she might've never had to resort to murdering Edmund.
• Dying Clue: Edmund came up with a really good one. He was left trapped in Abigail's safe with no light (the light bulb in the safe was burned out) and nothing to write with, and even if he had something to write with, he had no way of knowing if Abigail would be the first person to open the safe and destroy any message he could leave. What he does have is a belt buckle to scrape with, and a copy of the manuscript to Abigail's latest novel, The Night I Was Murdered, stored in the safe. So what does he do? He rips out the middle of the title page. He uses one of the six matches he had in his pocket to scratch out the words "THE NIGHT" in the title, leaving the scrap of paper saying "I WAS MURDERED by Abigail Mitchell." Then he balls up the scrap of paper and hides it in the light socket in the ceiling, then draws an arrow on the safe deposit boxes to point up. Columbo figures out what the scratches on the safe deposit boxes are, finds the scrap of paper, and nails Abigail.
• Establishing Character Moment: When someone calls Edmund her nephew, Abigail carps "He's not my nephew, he was married to my niece, Phyllis." Her relationship with Edmund is firmly established in a single line.
• Fanservice: Columbo, seeking out Veronica for questioning, finds her at a belly-dancing class. Cue sexy Fanservice dancing both from Veronica and from the very attractive instructor.
• Failed a Spot Check: While messing with Columbo at Edmund's house, Abigail points out the various sporting equipment and rather unsubtly implies that Edmund was one of the Idle Rich. She fails to notice what Columbo does, that there were no pictures of her niece in the house, which Columbo takes as evidence that they had an Awful Wedded Life. Abigail is dumbfounded.
• Idiot Ball: Abigail makes a lot of problems for herself by panicking and snatching Edmund's keys off the desk when she sees them there. Leaving them there would have run the risk that the maid might have noticed them, but it's unlikely that it would have led the maid to conclude that Edmund was in the safe and get it open in time to save him (only Veronica, Edmund, and Abigail herself had the combination), and leaving the keys there to be discovered would have fit with the theory that Edmund had snuck into the house to steal from the safe and been locked in by accident. By picking up and hiding the keys she provided direct evidence that it was not an accident.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: A very common Columbo trope. Abigail stages the scene to make it look like Edmund opened the safe to steal from it, but accidentally locked himself in.
• Mama Bear: Abigail's motivation is to avenge the death of her niece, whom she loved like a daughter. Her final words to Edmund before she locks him in the vault are to make him understand exactly why this is happening.
  Abigail: You murdered my Phyllis. Did you really think I didn't know?!
• Meaningful Look:
  • There isn't anything to directly prove that Abigail is right about Edmund murdering her niece. The smarmy, arrogant smirk on his face when he's looking at a picture of Phyllis indicates that she may be right, or as Columbo deduced later that theirs was an Awful Wedded Life, and he was merely a jerk now happy to be a free man again.
  • Columbo tries to stop Abigail from going on her cruise. Her lawyer Martin quashes that, and shows up on the cruise ship to see Abigail off. As he's wishing her a good trip he says "And call me the next time you find a body in your safe," and gives her a hard look, revealing that he at least suspects that she murdered Edmund.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Abigail is basically an American Agatha Christie. If it weren't obvious enough from the "elderly, beloved, best-selling mystery novelist", there's the bit about Abigail giving the rights to a play to Phyllis as a birthday present. Christie signed over the rights to her play The Mousetrap to her grandson, Mathew Prichard, for Prichard's ninth birthday.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Abigail gave her niece Phyllis the rights to a play she wrote as a birthday present. Phyllis's husband may have murdered her to inherit those rights. Having convinced herself it was murder, Abigail makes especially sure to get those rights back in a will Edmund doesn't properly read, before locking him in an airtight safe.
• No-Sell: Now caught, Abigail tries the "sweet old lady routine" one last time to have the detective overlook her serious crime. Columbo rebukes her, saying they are both professionals when it comes to their work.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: To avoid incriminating herself, Abigail lies about where she found Edmund's car keys and then rubs her own fingerprints over the keys so they're worthless to forensics. When Columbo later shows her a blow up of a photo taken by police photographers on the day the body was found with no keys she merely claims that one bush looks much like another. Columbo sees through the "sweet old lady" routine but can't really do anything about it.
• Riddle for the Ages: Did Edmund Galvin really murder his wife Phyllis in a boating accident? Abigail has certainly convinced herself. The rights to a play are mentioned, and Abigail is careful to get those rights back, but it seems unlikely that Edmund, already fairly wealthy, murdered his wife just for rights to a single play. While Columbo finds some evidence that theirs was an Awful Wedded Life that also doesn't prove anything by itself. The episode never resolves the issue. A caught Abigail at the end wishes Columbo had investigated her beloved niece's disappearance, but would she really have accepted that Edmund was innocent if Columbo had been unable to find evidence to show he was guilty?
• Sinister Suffocation: Abigail locks Edmund into an airtight safe, where he suffocates.
• Sympathetic Murderer: Abigail, who believes she is bringing justice to the murderer of her beloved niece.
• Tranquil Fury: Martin, Abigail's lawyer, seems to realize that she killed Edmund and is not happy about nearly being made into an unwitting accessory to the crime.
• Worthy Opponent: When he finally gets her at the end Abigail compliments Columbo's skills and says that if he'd been the one to investigate the murder of her niece, none of what happened after would have been necessary.