Recap / Fillmore Masterstroke Of Malevolence

• Bluffing the Murderer: Fillmore is able to get the culprit to expose themselves by claiming that O'Farrell got a picture of them.
• Class Trip: The premise of the episode.
• Closed Circle: After one of the suspects tries to make a break for it, the security guard has the room put on lockdown.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: O'Farrell isn't pleased when Vallejo decides to replace him for the day with a simple tripod.
• Fictional Painting: Mrs. Lawson's field trip to the Modern Contemporary Natural History, Art, Science and Miniature Museum takes a horrifying turn as someone draws a mustache on the priceless painting "The Lobster Man at Port".
• Foreshadowing: The identity of the culprit is hinted at in the very beginning. Gustav Amadeus Douglas dropped out of public life thirty years ago. Coincidentally, after this is mentioned security guard Leonard Grahand complains about being forced into early retirement after thirty years of loyal service.
  • Similarly, when Nick suggests that Leo find the culprit, he's shot down for letting someone vandalize a painting under his watch. It was Leo himself who vandalized the painting.
• Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Simon Prosper is bald in the present day, but in the flashback where he's seen buying the Lobsterman at Port he still has a full head of hair.
• Indy Hat Roll: Leo shuts the security gate during his escape attempt, forcing Fillmore and Ingrid to roll under it as it's closing to get through.
• Lightning Reveal: Right as Fillmore lowers a book bearing the picture of Gustav Amadeus Douglas, lightning strikes... showing Leonard Graham making almost the exact same scowl as Douglas.
• Mustache Vandalism: A mustache mysteriously drawn on a famous painting starts the plot.
• One-Book Author: Deconstructed. The painting that gets vandalized is famous for being the artist's only work. Later on, it turns out the culprit was actually the artist himself, who was bitter that he had spent years creating several paintings that no one wanted to buy. The painting he vandalized was the only one he sold and it actually wasn't finished yet as he intended on giving the subject a mustache.
• Race Against the Clock: Filmore and Ingrid have a limited window of time— 20 minutes— to find the vandal (and the marker they used) before the mustache becomes permanent.
• Red Herring: The identity of the culprit falls on a number of suspects during the investigation.
  • Nick Baker and Leonard Grahand are talking about how Leo is being forced into early retirement, and Nick suggests that something be done to show he's still in his prime and worth keeping in the museum's employ. Although Nick had swiped a pen from Simon Prosper's office and planted it on Sarah Beale during the day, he had nothing to do with the vandalism. However, Leo was in fact the culprit - but for a completely different reason.
  • Timmy is believed to have been looking for a distraction to sneak off to the Clobber Goblin store across from the museum. While he did try to run off to the store repeatedly during the chaos of the vandalism, it was out of opportunism at the situation and he was not involved in the vandalism.
  • Sarah Beale is very antagonistic towards the artist and the teacher because she's opposed to the portrayal of crustaceans that she sees as cruel, specifically the Lobsterman at Port. While the pen she surrendered to the Safety Patrol is pink, a black marker was later found stashed in her back pocket. Nick swiped that pen from Simon Prosper's office during a celebration the previous day, and later planted the pen on Sarah to take suspicion off himself.
• Two Aliases, One Character: Security guard Leonard Graham is actually the reclusive artist Gustav Amadeus Douglas, creator of the Lobsterman at Port.
• Varying Competency Alibi: Inverted. Fillmore realizes Leo vandalized the painting as he was too good a security guard to just let someone sabotage any of the artwork under his watch.