Title:"Columbo Likes The Night Life"
Directed by: Jeffrey Reiner
Written by: Michael Alaimo
Air Date: January 30, 2003
Previous: Murder With Too Many Notes
Next: none
Guest Starring: Matthew Rhys, Jennifer Sky
"Columbo Likes the Nightlife" is a 2003 Columbo TV movie. It was the series finale, the last of 69 Columbo episodes dating back to the original pilot film in 1968.
Justin Price (Matthew Rhys) is about to open his new rave club, "The Bait" and is assured by The Don's son, Tony Galper, of additional funding from an East Coast mob (Tony is visiting Los Angeles from out of town). Later, while at home, Vanessa Farrow has an unwanted visit from Tony Galper, her former husband. Tony happens upon a photograph of Justin Price and becomes physically enraged, projecting his anger upon Vanessa. In self-defense, she pushes Tony away but he falls onto a coffee table and dies, knocking the table off a leg. When Justin is called over, they both agree that the police must not be called due to the victim's biological connections and because major funding is about to be wired to Justin.
Justin recovers a key card to Tony Galper's room at an Orpheus Hotel. After concealing Tony's body, Justin drives over to the hotel to "check him out" of his room and create the illusion that he's still alive and about. However, the room service lady later mentions to Columbo strange behavior changes from "Tony" in his bathroom habits.
The situation becomes even worse when a paparazzo/freelance-reporter Linwood Coben calls Vanessa to tell that he knows about the incident and has also e-mailed Justin an extortion demand along with proof of his photography of Tony's death. Justin meets Linwood in person and in exchange for keeping the incident a secret, Linwood demands $250k and suggests that Justin brings one of his girls. It is also revealed that Linwood and Justin have a history together. Justin agrees to meet Linwood in two hours but to clandestinely stage his "suicide" instead.
After having Linwood open the decoy money backpack, Justin strangles Linwood, the strangulation appearing to succeed after an intense struggle. Justin adds a noose around Linwood's neck and ties it to a radiator, and starts removes the photo evidence from the room. Now they type a fake suicide note on Linwood's computer, but Linwood regains consciousness as Justin is working. Justin throws him out the window prematurely, the weight of Linwood eventually breaking off the radiator and causing him to fall to the alley below. The sudden stop at the bottom probably kills him, if not the noose.
The problem is, when Columbo investigates the "suicide", he notices Linwood used mouthwash recently and left toe-nail clippings in the toilet. This is "more like getting ready for a woman than a suicide." Also, he notes that the keyboard for typing the suicide note is missing fingerprints on the E & I keys and that someone tore out the current page of Linwood's calendar before the "suicide". Columbo determines someone wants him to believe that this was a suicide.
Columbo also finds that the aforementioned East Coast mob has sent a representative who tells Columbo about their interest in the case, due to Tony Galper disappearing after he loaned a startling sum of money.
Tropes:
- Absence of Evidence: The lack of any prints on the E and I is what convinces Columbo that the "suicide" note was actually typed out by someone wearing gloves.
- Accidental Murder: How the incident begins. Vanessa didn't intend for Tony Galper to die. He gets upset when he sees a photo of Justin and becomes aggressive, she pushes him away and he dies from falling.
- Anti-Villain: Justin wants to run an honest rave club that isn't performing any illegal activities (not from what we can see) and only has one incident of an underage drinker slipping by security. However, Justin has gotten himself in the debt of an east-coast Mafia on behalf of Tony to pay the expenses and thus he is cooperating with a criminal enterprise indirectly. Justin isn't the type who likes murder, but Linwood blackmailed him and Justin wasn't going to find out what would happen if the mob found out that Vanessa inadvertently caused Tony's death.
- Artistic License – Law: After Justin Price returns from murdering Linwood Coben, a paramedic asks Justin to sign paperwork for an underage guest at the dance club. However, in California, having underage people drink alcohol is a very serious offense and would likely place Justin's liquor license in jeopardy. However, the subplot is dropped and isn't brought up again except for Columbo to discover that Justin was away from the club with a "dead" pager (secretly murdering Linwood).
- Asshole Victim:
- Tony Galper makes a poor impression when he becomes jealous at the sight of a picture of Justin Price and becomes physical with Vanessa.
- Linwood Coben's extortion and his unsavory behavior likely don't help with audience sympathy towards him. At least he's not into organized crime.
- Blackmail Backfire: Linwood fails to consider a device to dissuade Justin from murdering him. Being witness to the Accidental Murder of a Mafia big-shot, he should have considered that Price wasn't going to risk having witnesses, paid-off or not. Plus, extorting Price for $250k (in 2003 dollars!) was way too wishful, but given his alcoholism and debt-hood, he probably wasn't plotting rationally.
- Bland-Name Product:
- Mouthwash brand mouthwash used by Linwood Coben. It's actually a bottle of Listerine.
- Vanessa Farrow ended up in "The National Inquisitor", a spoof on the real "National Enquirer" tabloid magazine.
- Justin sends Columbo a colorful "rave" T-shirt via the "SendEx" delivery service...it's FedEx right down to the typeface on the package.
- Bloodier and Gorier: This, the last ever Columbo episode, had easily the most graphic murder. Justin tries to strangle Linwood with a ligature, but Linwood manages to elbow Justin in the gut and escape. They brawl for a little bit before a well-placed Groin Attack gets Justin the upper hand and he manages to strangle Linwood again—but Linwood is Not Quite Dead. As Linwood is staggering to his feet, Justin turns around and sees him. Justin wraps the cord around Linwood's neck and, while they're still grappling, Justin throws him out the window. And that winds up ripping the old radiator out of the wall, causing Linwood to fall four floors and the radiator to fall on top of him. Most every other murder through the whole run of Columbo was some variation of Death by Falling Over, Gory Discretion Shot, or Bloodless Carnage.
- Call-Back: To Death Lends a Hand. The way Tony Galper dies is similar to Lenore Kennicut, only this time, the manslaughter is self-defense. Both incidents also begin with aggravated assault and happen without premeditation. Hiding Tony's body under a new construction to prevent the loss of financial aid also harkens back to Blueprint For Murder.
- Constructive Body Disposal: As mentioned above under Call-Back, Tony is hidden in this manner by Justin to bail out Vanessa from trouble with the mob. However, he makes the mistake of hiding the body underneath the location of a soon-to-be installed floor aquarium, which forces the tank to be smaller than the other ones. Columbo naturally spots this inconsistency and obtains a warrant to confirm his suspicion.
- Death by Falling Over: Tony dies from the impact of falling onto a coffee table, supposedly from head trauma.
- Disappointed in You: After Columbo exposes where the culprits hid the body, he voices "This place really could've been something" before adding "Too bad", as though reflecting how disappointed he is in the culprits.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Linwood has a drinking problem accompanying his debt troubles.
- Leitmotif: Unusual for Columbo, the episode uses an electronic music track at various points which fits into the plot about financing Price's rave club. At least one track is actually playing in the club itself and is like the defacto main theme.
- The Gambling Addict: Justin throws Columbo a "clue" by telling about Linwood's gambling addiction, in the hope that he buys the staged suicide scene. However, Columbo already knows that the fake suicide note typing removed some of Linwood's fingerprints, so it doesn't change Columbo's mind.
- The Mafia: Tony is the son of The Don in a mob that has the funds to finance Justin Price. Steven Schrippa (Bobby from The Sopranos) plays a "messenger" from the East Coast mob that arrives to check up on Columbo and the state of the case.
- Must Have Caffeine: As usual, Columbo requests a coffee after arriving at the murder scene. To Columbo's mild disappointment, the coffee he drinks went cold.
- Never Found the Body: Justin tries to pull this off A La Blueprint For Murder to ensure that he retains the financing for his dance club, keeping the Mob off his and Vanessa's back. He even hides the body under the nightclub dance floor, similar to the former episode. He succeeds in the burial, unlike the former, but the body is revealed by ground-penetrating radar.
- Never Suicide: Justin makes it appear that Linwood suicided, but Columbo isn't fooled.
- Not Good with Rejection: Tony starts fighting with Vanessa due to her picture of Justin Price and their divorce still upsetting him, leading to him being shoved away, and falling to his death.
- Paparazzi: Linwood's job. He has a side business with Justin in which Linwood takes compromising photos of celebrities and then extorts said celebrities for the negatives. This deal ends up hurting Justin when Linwood happens to spy on the death of Tony and takes advantage.
- Revealing Cover Up: Removing a sensitive page from Coben's calendar doesn't hide the information. Columbo finds it strange that someone would bother to tear a then-current page out of their calendar and then jump out a window to hang themself. As it turns out, a Writing Indentation Clue reveals the info anyway.
- Ridiculously Average Guy: An Anti-Villain example, Justin Price is like a poster man for this trope, appearing to be unremarkable aside from being the owner of a nightclub funded by secret mafia money. He broke the mold even more when he felt desperate to eliminate Linwood who blackmailed Justin over him being drawn into the aftermath Tony's accidental death. His low-key appearance presumably helped him stay below suspicion of mob associations before Columbo started investigating the Linwood case. Justin puts in a good effort to conceal the first accidental death and his own follow-up own murder, making very few mistakes, but he's not quite in the top tier with villains like Oliver from The Bye-Bye Sky High IQ Murder Case. Justin is also not the most revolting villain of the series, yet he's still dealing with The Mafia and doesn't want to confess and take the weight off his shoulder.
- Series Continuity Error: A trivial one; in A Bird in the Hand, Columbo mentions seeing Mrs. McCain in "The Inquirer" before his investigation of the McCain case. However, Columbo stumbles across an issue of the "National Inquisitor" which is the Bland-Name Product equivalent of "The National Inquirer".
- Sympathetic Murderer: A Downplayed example. While Justin has questionable ethics accepting money from a Mafia to make ends meet, he only murdered Linwood because he suspected that Linwood would continue to blackmailing him and if word leaked out that his girlfriend Vanessa was involved in the death of a Don's son, she'd likely be sleeping with the fishes. As a result, Justin makes himself an accomplice by hiding Tony's body and thus puts himself in the line of fire if the mob finds out what really happened as Justin desperately needs the extra cash to reach his bank.
- Too Clever by Half: Downplayed as Justin Price is one of the most level-headed killers in the series and he came close to getting away with his murder and covering up Vanessa's defensive manslaughter. Price's "suicide" scheme has a solid motive: Linwood Coben's deeply in debt and he is known to be an alcoholic. It's feasible that Linwood would commit suicide, and the police would rule this a spur-of-the-moment incident. Unfortunately, the suicide note typing removed fingerprints on the keyboard due to the gloves and Columbo happened to be on this case to link the additional details that didn't add up on top of the suicide document like the nonsensical removal of a then-current calendar page before supposedly hanging oneself.
- Trapped by Gambling Debts: Justin tells Columbo about the late Linwood's gambling addiction in the hope of misleading the Lieutenant. Indeed, Linwood extorts Justin and supposedly will make himself an accessory to accidental manslaughter because he desperately wants to pay off of the collectors and bookies hounding him and start a new financial life. Justin doesn't buy it, and murders him instead.
- Uncertain Doom: Since Vanessa and Justin were caught for covering up the accidental manslaughter of the son of a mob boss, there's little hope for their continued existence once they're released from prison, accident or not.
- Writing Indentation Clue: Why simply removing a calendar page isn't sufficient.
