Recap / Columbo S 10 E 10

NORM!!

Episode: Season 10, Episode 10
Title: Strange Bedfellows
Directed by: Vincent Mc Eveety
Written by: Peter S. Fischer (as Lawrence Vail)
Air Date: May 8, 1995
Previous: Undercover
Next: A Trace of Murder
Guest Starring: George Wendt, Rod Steiger, Bruce Kirby

"Strange Bedfellows" is a 1995 Columbo TV movie.

Graham McVeigh (George Wendt) is the owner of Timber Ridge Farms, a horse breeding and stable business that breeds thoroughbred race horses. Graham has a problem. The problem is his brother Teddy, a ne'er-do-well loser who has a habit of running up huge gambling debts, and who inconveniently owns half of Timber Ridge, which the brothers inherited from their parents. Teddy, much to his brother's rage, has once again run up massive gambling debts, and is now deeply in hock to the Mafia.

Graham decides on a more permanent solution to the problem: killing Teddy. Graham has a horse, Fiddling Bull, that he has been holding back in races in order to build up long odds for a big race at Santa Anita, but the horse has been posting stellar times in trials at Timber Ridge and the McVeighs are confident that they're going to win. Teddy is so confident that he tells the Mafia goons to bet on their horse to get back the money that Teddy owes them.

Before the race, Graham drugs Fiddling Bull, which loses. He promises a now-terrified Teddy that he will pay off Teddy's debt, which is now $200K. He pays a visit to the restaurant of Bruno Romano, the bookie that Teddy is in debt to, and sets some mice loose in the bathroom. The chaos distracts Romano long enough for Graham to make a call to Teddy from Romano's office phone, so the phone records will make it seem like Romano was calling Teddy. Then Graham drives Teddy to a deserted dirt road in the hills to make what Teddy thinks will be the payoff. At this point, Graham shoots his brother in the back of the head, then rides away on a folding bike he stashed in the trunk.

The next night Graham calls Romano and offers to make a payoff. Romano comes to Timber Ridge to collect the cash, and Graham shoots him dead with a different gun. He then plants the gun he used to kill Teddy on Romano to frame him for Teddy's murder, and hides Romano's actual gun. Then he tells the cops that he shot Romano in self-defense.

Unfortunately for Graham there are two things he didn't count on. The first is Lt. Columbo, investigating officer for both murders, who wonders why there was ash in the ashtray of Teddy's car when Teddy didn't smoke. (Graham does.) Columbo also finds out that Bruno had an alibi; he was at home having sex with his girlfriend at the time Teddy was killed. The second and much worse thing that Graham didn't count on is Vincenzo Fortelli (Rod Steiger), a notorious Mafia boss and friend to Bruno Romano. Fortelli wants revenge.

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Tropes:

• The Alleged Car: Columbo's ancient Peugeot backfires a lot during this episode.
• Ambiguous Situation: Notwithstanding what previous episodes established, can Columbo speak Italian? He claims not to, and seems to genuinely not realise what's in the clam soup despite having had its Italian name spoken to him twice. However, that may just be very thorough about keeping up his Obfuscating Stupidity, as some of Peter Falk's acting choices suggest he understands what Fortelli says to his goons immediately after claiming not to speak the language. The final lines of the episode, when Columbo pretends not to even know what "Ciao" means with a big grin on his face and Fortelli laughingly tells him to "get out of here", may be read as Columbo tacitly admitting to the ruse.
• And Another Thing...: One of the occasional lampshades of Columbo's "Just one more thing" routine. Graham tells hiim to leave. Columbo starts to leave, then turns and says "Just one more thing..." Graham shuts that down, saying "No, Lieutenant, there is no 'Just one more thing'. Goodbye."
• Artistic License – Law:
  • One of many, many episodes where Lt. Columbo is investigating a murder outside the city bounds of Los Angeles, with not even a Hand Wave about doing a favour to an old friend or the like.
  • Columbo staging the ending scene with a notorious mob boss like that? A lawyer, Internal Affairs & the news media would have torn Columbo's career apart over a stunt like that- ESPECIALLY with the "confession" being coerced under apparent threat of murder. Granted, since Fortelli told Columbo he would definitely have killed Graham if the trap didn't work like it was supposed to, Graham wouldn't exactly jump at the chance to fight it.
• As You Know: Chatter between Graham and his horse trainer about how they "held the Fiddle back for three straight races" in order to set up long odds for the big race.
• Bluffing the Murderer: In the end Graham is lured to a fancy restuarant, but it's a trap set by Fortelli. Columbo shows up and Graham, who knows that Door #2 is "get murdered", picks Door #1 and confesses to the murders of Teddy and Bruno. The last scene, however, reveals that it was a scheme that Columbo and Fortelli cooked up to trick Graham into confessing—the two men pretending to be Fortelli's Mooks were actually LAPD cops.
• Briefcase Full of Money: Subverted, when what appears to be stacks of $100 bills in Graham's suitcase are actually stacks of $1 bills with a single $100 on top of each. This is because Graham never intends to give the money over at all.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: Graham wears one of these to the pawn shop where he gets the gun to kill Teddy. The owner does lock the door while talking to Graham about the gun, but still...
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Graham dramatically does this right before shooting his brother in the back of the head.
  • He also does this as he's about to shoot Bruno.
• Didn't Think This Through: Graham cooked up an idea to kill his brother and then kill a mobster to pin his brother's murder on him. It never occurred to Graham that Bruno's mob buddies wouldn't take their friend/underling being killed lying down.
• Dutch Angle: The camera tilts wildly to demonstrate Graham's terror as he hides in the restaurant's bathroom after realizing that Fortelli has laid a trap for him there.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Graham lets some mice loose in the women's room of Bruno's restaurant. When the first woman to go in reacts with predictable hysterics, Graham takes advantage of the distraction to sneak into Bruno's office and make the phone call to Teddy.
• Enemy Mine: Lt. Columbo of the Los Angeles Police Department and Mafia boss Vincenzo Fortelli team up to bring a killer to justice.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Columbo and his care enter the crime scene, it's the usual fanfare of someone thinking he's a civilian before he flashes his badge, nothing unusual. But then the police officer at hand wonders if Columbo's all right, setting up how lieutenant isn't in pique perfection. Sure enough, the next scene shows that the detective is disheveled, and Columbo reveals the nature of his ailment in one word:
  Columbo: ...Clams...
• Fixing the Game: Graham drugs his own horse in order to manufacture a motive for the Mafia to murder Teddy.
• The Gambling Addict: Teddy, who has repeatedly run up massive gambling debts in the past and has done so again.
• GPS Evidence: Columbo digs the dead mouse from the restaurant bathroom out of the dumpster. He finds that it is a particular breed of long-tailed mouse which is not found in Los Angeles, but is found in rural, pastoral areas like Graham's farm. (Columbo has a surprisingly thorough knowledge of mouse taxonomy.)
• Heel–Face Turn: Fortelli says he's gone through this, giving up his criminal past in favor of legal business ventures. Though it's suggested he will commit murder if the suspect is not arrested.
• Idiot Ball: Maybe it was not the best idea to kill a member of the Mafia.
• I Was Never Here: Graham buys a gun from a pawn shop owner for the purposes of killing Teddy. As he leaves he says "This meeting never took place."
• Series Continuity Error
  • Bruno Kirby, who appeared in seven episodes as Sgt. George Kramer, makes his last Columbo appearance as "Sgt. Phil Brindle". Of course, in two other episodes he played a lab tech and a TV repairman, so he may simply be playing yet a third character... Alternatively, as "Sgt. Brindle" only appears in the context of Columbo falsely claiming he's an agent who's been tailing Vincenzo Fortelli for years, he may be an entirely imaginary policeman portrayed by Sgt. Kramer as part of Columbo's ruse, just as one of the goons turns out to be Officer Bernstein.
  • Columbo says he doesn't actually speak Italian when he meets Vincenzo Fortelli, and he appears to be telling the truth as he later doesn't recognize the Italian word for "clams". Columbo was shown speaking Italian several times during the 1970s run. Though he may have been bluffing (as he had just been kidnapped and was able to listen in on Fortelli chewing out his goons), and depending on how fluent he was, he may have simply not recognized one word he had barely used. See Ambiguous Situation.
• Plot Allergy: One minor subplot involves Columbo's allergy to clams, which makes him physically ill to the point of needing stomach medicine and chicken soup with lentils. His investigation of Teddy and Bruno's murders even gets set back a few days, after he inadvertently eats an Italian dish with clams in it...
• Trademark Favorite Food: Graham has a habit of ordering "scotch and soda, easy on the soda." This becomes a piece of circumstantial evidence against him when the bartender at Bruno's restaurant says that the strange man who was at the bar when the mice were released ordered a drink using exactly those words.
• Villainous Breakdown: After Graham's patience wears thin due to repeated encounters with Columbo, he starts panicking when the prospect of Vincenzo Fortelli having him eliminated crops up. He fully cracks at the end when he is trapped at the Bay Leaf restaurant by Fortelli and Columbo is seemingly forced to leave him there, as he begs for his life and confesses of having murdered Teddy and Bruno in order to be spared.