Recap / Diagnosis: Murder S2E1 "Many Happy Returns"

Hey, Benjamin Franklin said death and taxes are unavoidable in this world, this just cuts out the middleman.

Mark is stressed out, as he has just found out he is being audited. His accountant Ernie Pitt does not do much to settle his nerves, not even showing up at Community General when IRS Agent Gretchen McCord arrives to begin the audit. When Mark is able to slip away, he marches right over to Pitt's house, only to find him with a steak knife in his heart.

With Mark now possibly being on the hook for both tax fraud and murder, he finds a whole new drive to investigate the murder, or wind up in prison.

"Many Happy Returns" displays symptoms of the following tropes:

• Amoral Attorney: Avery Decker, running an insurance fraud ring out of his clinic.
• Assurance Backfire: Ernie tries to settle Mark's nerves over being audited by saying he's been through a lot of audits with his clients, and so far, he's batting 500. Mark ruefully points out that batting 500 would mean he's lost half of those audits.
• Attack on the Heart: Ernie gets that steak knife right in the ticker.
• The Corpse Stops Here: Mark is the prime suspect of Ernie's murder because he was found hovering^note Leaning! over Ernie's body. More justification comes when it's revealed he left threatening messages on Ernie's answering machine.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Nick Kove is incredibly possessive of Nick Kove's ex-girlfriend, Ernie's secretary Nadine, the the point that Nick Kove figured she was shacking up with Ernie and went to beat him up.
• Everyone Has Standards: Nick Kove may be a jealous douche willing to beat up anyone who talks to Nick Kove's ex-girlfriend, but Nick Kove admits that Nick Kove would never use a weapon; Nick Kove is a weapon.
• Insistent Terminology: Mark was not hovering over Ernie's body, he was leaning.
• Intimidating Revenue Service: Mark is certainly in fear over his audit, but Agent McCord has been seen as too soft to be anything other than a desk jockey for the last 8 years. Mark proclaims he'll complain to her superiors, much to her delight.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Decker orders his henchman Roland to kill Mark this way. It's also apparently the motto of his firm.
• Only One Name: We never learn Nadine's surname.
• Pull the Thread: While investigating Avery Decker, Mark is unwittingly recruited to look after the injured people in his waiting room, and as he enters the exam room, a man comes in with his leg in a brace. Mark feels the leg and realizes the patient doesn't even flinch, leading him to grill the guy.
  Mark: Do you have any tingling in the toes?
  Man in Brace: Oh, yes, lots of tingling.
  Mark: Shooting pains in the thumbs?
  Man in Brace: Constantly.
  Mark: Nose cramps?
  Man in Brace: Night and day. [The man lightly slugs Mark in the shoulder] So how much you think I'm gonna get this time, doc-
  Mark: Ten years.
  Man in Brace: [Shocked] For what?
  Mark: Insurance fraud, son. Go home.
• Run for the Border: A plane ticket is found in Ernie's name with a one-way stop to the Cayman Islands. The ticket turns out to actually be Nadine's.
• Running Gag:
  • Mark was leaning over Ernie's body.
  • The gang calling up their accountants to make sure their taxes are all in order.
• Stealing from the Till: It's initially believed that Ernie was doing this with his client's money, but it was actually Nadine.
• Third-Person Person: As this page shows, Nick Kove has a particular habit of referring to Nick Kove this way.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Ernie's assistant Nadine sounds and acts horrified seeing Mark hovering^note Leaning! over Ernie's body when she's the one who actually killed him.