The figure skating world is shocked when returning competitor Julie Miller is attacked by the ex-manager of her main rival Debbie Monroe. A plan Julie was well aware of as the one who planned it. She hopes that the negative press will terminate her rival's career and land her in the championship spot (with which comes a million dollar endorsement).
However, her "attacker" decides he wants more than the initial payment, and the negotiations end with his head on the business end of Julie's ice skate. No matter to the new champion; she now has something much better to damage her rival with if Mark can't deduce the truth.
"Murder on Thin Ice" displays symptoms of the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Julie hadn't exactly planned on killing Sean, but his creepiness led her to striking him in the head with her ice skate.
- As Himself: Skaters Peggy Fleming, Tai Babilona, and Randy Gardner all appear in the episode, with Peggy doing announcing work for the figure skating competition.
- Asshole Victim: Sean Farlow, willing to set up a young woman for attacking her opponent with a knife, and tried to blackmail said opponent (who hired him) into both bumping up his pay and sleeping with him. Yeah, you earned that ice skate to the head, jackass.
- Blackmail Backfire: Once Sean makes bail, he visits Julie while she is practicing after hours and demands an increase to the $50,000 she was to pay him for the attack. Julie agrees to double his fee, but he adds up more to $1,000,000. He also decides he'd want a go with her spread eagle, and in anger, she slashes at his head with her skate.
- Frame-Up: Julie was hoping Debbie would be blamed for the attack on her, which would knock her out of the running and give her the win. When she cuts into Sean's head, she bumps the framework all the way to murder.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Part of Julie' Frame-Up involved screwing the bloody blade of her skate onto one of Debbie's. When she has to shoot a commercial while skating, she falls over because her skates are cut to be speedy while Debbie's are cut to have more control.
- Improvised Weapon: Julie had been taking her skates off when Sean came in to get a higher fee for his work, so she had them in hand when his demands went from the sleaziness of ruining a person's reputation to the sleaziness of demanding sex via blackmail and she lost her cool.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The entire episode is based on the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, only in that case the weapon was a police baton and in the episode the figure skater staged the attack on herself to frame her rival. Oh, and of course, the real Tonya Harding never murdered anyonenote .
- Sarcastic Clapping: Sean makes his presence known to Julie at the ice rink by getting some of this in after watching her fall down on the ice.
- Villainous Breakdown: Julie sarcastically asks if she's supposed to break down and confess when Mark makes it clear he knows she killed Sean.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Julie Miller faked an attack on herself committed by the ex-manager of her main rival to gain sympathy and ruin said rival's reputation. She even brings crutches she doesn't need to her next event to really wring the sympathy out.
