Written By: Peter S. Fischer
Directed By: Walter Grauman
A has-been mystery writer arrives in Cabot Cove with apples for Jessica, but she have something else up her sleeve.
Tropes
- Always Someone Better: Eudora is driven by envy of Jessica having basically taken her spot as the queen of modern mystery fiction, despite that Eudora was writing for decades longer than Jessica.
- Antagonistic Offspring: In a mild way, Eudora's son in law spends her money for a lavish existence, balks at his father's advice that money isn't everything and that hard work is what matters, and acts like an impulsive thug in times where his father tries to rein him in, driving a wedge between his father and Eudora. It becomes much less mild when it surmises that his son has also been murdering and framing people so as to protect his and his father's lifestyle, against his father's wishes...
- Call-Back: Mort mentions this being his "fifth murder" since he started as sheriff; the others were in Mr. Penroy's Vacation, Weave a Tangled Web, Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble, and The Sins of Castle Cove.
- "Double, Double" Title: The episode's title is derived from Snow White, itself referenced in the relationship between Eudora (the evil Queen) and Jessica (Snow White).
- Famous, Famous, Fictional: Lew Bracken compares Eudora to several real life mystery writers, namely Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers P.D. James....and of course Jessica Fletcher. Of the three actual authors, P.D. James was the only one still alive at the time of the episode (she died in 2014).
- Fishing Episode: Jessica & Seth were fishing early in the episode.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Eudora McVeigh Shipton envies Jessica because while her career is waning, Jessica is more popular than ever.
- Lampshade Hanging: Sheriff Metzger points out the high propensity of murders that seem to occur in Cabot Cove, noting "I've only been here a year, this is my fifth murder! What is this, the death capital of Maine?"
- Tempting Apple: Eudora arrives at Jessica's house bearing a basket full of them. They become a plot point later.
- Ungrateful Bastard: These episodes focus on Eudora McVeigh, a rival mystery author who tries to be friends with Jessica so she can steal from her latest manuscript, and the murder investigation that springs up around her, her husband, and her stepson. Jessica clears Eudora's name, but she continues to act coldly towards her before leaving Cabot Cove. Just before the end credits, Eudora shows up at Jessica's doorstep and makes a heartfelt apology for her horrible behavior after everything Jessica did for her. Eudora tells Jessica she's planning to divorce her husband and is taking a break from writing to spend time with her sister's family.
- Sympathetic Adulterer: Eudora's husband Hank is cheating on her with her publisher's wife - a personal friend of Eudora's - but both of them explicitly do love each other, and still care enough about Eudora to come down to Cabot Cove to genuinely try to help her when they realize she is about to do something reckless. On her part, while Eudora is furious that the affair is happening behind her back, both she and Hank are well aware their marriage has run its course and neither are particularly bothered for it to be ending. It's revealed that Hank doesn't even care about nor have any ability to inherit Eudora's fortune, and just wants to split apart amiably, eliminating him as a Red Herring. His greedy son, on the other hand...
- Wicked Stepmother: Eudora, the villain of the story, is said to be a stepmother to invoke this trope, particularly as a homage to Snow White's witch-stepmother. Subverted with the twist that her husband's son is trying to frame her for murder in an attempt to steal her money.
- Workaholic: The beginning of the two-parter has Seth call Jessica out on this, noting that she has become so tied up in her work that she no longer has time for her own hobbies like gardening, nor any time for her friends like Seth himself despite his numerous attempts to reach out to her. At the end of the two parter, after having seen how much being dominated by her own work as caused Eudora's mental health to strain, Jessica chooses to put her newest novel aside to go on a fishing trip with Seth instead.
