Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and welcome back to another thrilling episode of That
Time on Murder, She Wrote.
I’m choosing yet another episode from season 5 to cover because in my opinion, this is
when the show peaked.
Consistently good writing, acting, and the balance of hammy and suspenseful is much more
equal.
Today we’re looking at Snow White, Blood Red - for some reason Murder, She Wrote never
could get a good grasp on titles.
It sounds like a cartoony caveman learning about colors.
Snow WHITE, Blood RED.
Not only does this episode take place in a ski lodge surrounded by snowy mountains, giving
it that EXTRA cozy feeling of winter and fireplaces, it also has one of the highest death counts
in the series, and honestly, is one of the most gruesome.
There IS something about being snowed in that makes people homicidal, isn’t there?
It has a star studded cast - not that you would know anybody by name but most of the
actors and actresses in this episode have had a career in TV or film, so you are bound
to recognize a few of them.
But the real reason I decided to cover this episode is solely because of this ridiculous
scene.
Hahahahaha.
As we begin, we see Jessica Fletcher traipsing around in the snow; this time she’s taking
a much earned vacation and learning how to ski.
Watch out for the yeti, now.
Also staying at the lodge is an Olympic Men’s Ski team, who are there for tryouts.
Johnny, one of the members on the ski team tells Jessica that the try outs may not happen
due to an incoming storm, then promptly ditches her to chat up Winter Time Barbie.
Trouble is brewing inside the lodge.
Remember perms?
This is Anne and her husband Mike, owners of the Sable Mountain Lodge.
They appear to be having marital problems, as they’ve been in debt and Anne has been
having an affair with one of the ski team members, Gunner Titlsom, AKA, Little John
from Robin Hood, Men in Tights.
“You didn’t marry me because I’m a bookkeeper.”
You married me for my HAIR.
Before we can move forward the episode makes a point to focus on this insane looking crossbow.
Anne jokes that they use it on skiing beginners, which amuses Jess, but… why exactly IS it
there?
Who has a crossbow WITH the arrows just mounted right there for anyone to nab?
Jess purchases a snow outfit for her nephew, Grady, who is supposed to be meeting her there.
Jess: “I haven’t seen him in 3 months!”
It’s been the best 3 months of my life.
Next we meet Gunnar and his weird hair, and one of his business partners, Pamela.
She’s upset because she got him a contract to promote her company’s skiing equipment,
under the assumption that he would be competing.
Alas, he is considering quitting.
Gunner: “Look, I’m pushing 30.”
And we all know that once you turn 30, you DIE……
I’m a ghost.”
Yeah, apparently he considers 30 too old to compete, which will screw over Pamela.
He says he wants to settle down with a wealthy widow, and Pamela mentions hearing a rumor
that he’s been tangled up with a mob bosses wife.
So not only is he pushing 30, but he’s also pushing his luck.
Gunner gets into a quarrel with the team’s coach, who interrupts him while he’s working
out.
Gunner: “Just workin’ on my Deltoids, papa bear.”
Oh my.
This line is so ridiculous I don’t even have a riff for it, but the next time someone
sees me working out I’m going to say “It’s arm day, papa bear!” and not explain it.
Pamela, feeling defeated by her conversation with Gunnar, tries to strike a deal with one
of the other team members, Larry.
Wow, this dancing is DEPRESSING, and on top of that, there seems to be an ugly sweater
competition going on.
Larry’s reminds me of toothpaste.
I realize this lodge is in the snowy mountains and I’m sure it’s freezing but these outfits
are abysmal.
It’s a battle of the argyles!
Larry says he’ll consider Pamela’s offer.
“Let’s sleep on it.”
Ohhh.
Jessica joins the depressing dance party and meets two other people, a cop Ed McMasters
and his Wife Sylvia.”
Ed: “This is where they put the old fogeys.
Ed: “I guess this is where they put the old fogeys.
Sylvia: “Around here, that’s anyone over thirty.”
Aaahhhh… once again, I’m over 30…
Jessica joins them for dinner and geezus fuck what ARE THEY EATING?
A plate of lettuce and the world’s roundest bread roll?
You could play baseball with that thing!
They enjoy their crispy water leafs and talk shop.
Sylvia: “What kind of work do you do, Jessica?”
Murders and executions, mostly.
For whatever reason, perhaps due to pressure from everyone wanting to see him compete,
Gunnar decides to practice the slopes in a terrible snow storm.
In the most amazing scene ever created, he is shot down by someone using that ridiculous
mounted crossbow.
HAHAHAHAHA, it’s PERFECT.
As is the screen behind him and this incredibly fake snow.
I’m pretty sure someone just ripped up some plastic bags and put them on his face.
Because the storm is so severe, everyone is trapped in the lodge with a murderer.
This is one of the best ways to use the closed circle trope, because even with phones and
vehicles at the ready, people still cannot leave their confines.
Nobody is able to traverse the snow, and because of the snow the roads are also closed.
And I also find it to be a truly scary setting for thrillers and mystery, with The Shining
being a prime example.
It’s freezing outside, but there’s a murderer inside.
Because the cop seemingly left the lodge early, Anne and Mike ask Jessica for help with Gunnar’s
murder; apparently they know of her reputation for solving mysteries in her home town.
Anne: “Mrs. Fletcher please, we have a panic downstairs.”
Jess: “yes, but could I do?”
What CAN’T you do, Jess?
Remember your mantra: WWJD?
Jess: (laughing)
Yep, this guy is dead.
Turns out Ed never made it down the mountain due to the storm, so now we have him, Jessica,
and a gynecologist working on the case.
I’d watch that buddy cop movie.
Jessica: “Dr. Lewis.”
Ed: “Oh hi.”
Dr. Lewis: “I am a gynecologist.”
Well, that was forthright.
I think everyone should introduce themselves this way.
No reciprocated greeting, just aggressively stating your occupation.
Dr. Lewis: “I am a gynecologist.”
Jess finds Gunnar’s hotel room key and decides to do some classic JB Fletcher snooping.
She finds a lighter, belonging to Anne, then Mike abruptly enters the room, hoping to find
it.
This guy looks like a version of Ryan Reynolds and it’s REALLY distracting.
Anne admitted to Mike that she had spent the night with Gunnar, her infidelity becoming
her alibi.
Mike just wanted to retrieve it so no one would suspect her.
Meanwhile, Johnny is doing his best Gordan Lightfoot while the team honors Gunnar.
Jess continues to interrogate people and keeps Ed up to date, even though he’s been ZERO
help on this case.
I find that amusing because usually, the cops want to take over and become annoyed with
Jess’s observations, but in this episode the detective is like “Eh, this is not my
jam, YOU look around and tell me if you find anything.
No one has been able to locate the murder weapon because it’s been carefully placed
behind these tires.
Ah yes, this will be perfect for my bicycle.
This is followed by a long and rather awkward shot of someone rolling an arrow around as
the camera slowly and dramatically zooms in on it..
Yep, it’s an arrow.
The tension between everyone becomes palpable - Johnny gets irritated at Pamela, and the
team’s couch gets irritated at everyone because he’s sloshed.
After a confrontation between him and Pamela, she goes to shower off after some cardio work.
Brace yourselves, because this might be the goriest death I’ve seen in Murder, She Wrote.
During that argument, someone slugged Larry, stripped him naked, hanged him by a rope attached
to the shower head, and stabbed to death.
Talk about overkill.
Is this why I am so afraid of showers?
Between this and psycho I’m traumatized forever.
Anne also informs everyone that the phone lines are out, and they are now completely
isolated from the outside world.
The only calls they can make are internal.
Despite things looking bleak, Jess says she saw a four wheel drive with a CB radio in
it outside, and suggests trying to use it to contact the sheriff.
I love that Jess NEVER gives up - she even observed that the car had a massachusetts
license plate, so they can find out who it belongs to.
She tries to get through, but unfortunately the station can’t send anyone up because
the roads are clogged.
While she and Mike are having a brainstorm back at the lodge, Johnny stumbles on in with
a stab wound on his arm.
Geezus, the whole team is croaking.
Luckily, his wound wasn’t fatal and they employ the comically nervous gynecologist
to bandage him up.
Jessica runs over a few things with Ed, wondering if Johnny could have possibly stabbed himself
with an arrow to create a diversion - perhaps Johnny was killing off the team so he could
have a better chance at the tryouts.
Ed doesn’t quite buy it, saying it’s not a good enough reason for murder.
“Well believe me, I’ve heard worse.”
You should see the shit I put up with in Cabot Cove.
She posits another possibility, saying that the only victim was meant to be Gunnar, but
since everyone was trapped in the lodge by the storm, the killer struck again to muddle
things up.
I’ve NEVER understood this idea but it’s presented in SO many murder mystery stories;
for example, in the Dagger of Amon Ra, only one murder is intended, but the murderer feels
he needs to cover up his crime with...another murder.
Or maybe the killer was just having a bad day!
According to this game, that’s a very realistic motive.
Jess receives a phone call in the middle of the night and it’s Sylvia, telling her that
Ed went missing after he had received an anonymous phone call.
Jess, being the brave and physically fit woman that she is, confronts the storm of plastic
bag bits to find him.
When she does, he explains he had gotten a call from someone telling him to meet him
outside the ski shop.
Suddenly, an arrow is fired at Jess - they duck for cover, then witness someone riding
a snowmobile out of the barn.
Ed takes a couple shots, and in dramatic slow motion scene, the driver tumbles over.
It’s the team’s coach, presumably dead by the shots.
Next to him is...the weird bow and arrow.
All of the suspicion is on the coach now, but Jess notices something odd about the blood
stains on Gunnar’s jacket.
She asks for the gynecologists help once again, and he removes two 38 caliber bullets from
Gunnar’s body.
This man is so traumatized by all the murder that he gives up skiing and claims he can’t
wait to get back to his job of examining vaginas.
Jessalso notices some sleigh bells.
Trust me, it’s important.
Now knowing who the killer is, she stops Ed and Sylvia on their way out the next morning.
She tells them there’s been a development, that the coach had been set up and the real
killer just wanted to cover up his previous crimes.
Ed insists that HE killed the coach when they were trying to escape, and that is true, he
did shoot him.
The bullet hole could be seen on his jacket, but the bloody bullet hole is what killed
him.
The two bullets extracted both came from Ed’s gun.
Jess: “When you shoot a corpse, it bleeds.
When you shoot a corpse, it doesn’t.”
Hot damn, this is wild!
So not only did Ed kill Gunnar and Larry in the most exaggerated ways possible, he ALSO
killed the coach, put him on a snowmobile, and staged this entire thing where he shoots
the corpse to look like the good guy in front of Jessica.
This is bonkers.
I honestly didn’t expect the story conclude this way because there were so many characters
with very transparent motives - Ed’s motive had to be explained at the very end, which
I know will be complete bullshit to those who like solving mysteries with actual evidence
as the case is presented, but Murder, She Wrote tends to throw a few curve balls into
the plot.
Turns out Ed is a hit man - he didn’t know ANY of the people he murdered, he did it for
money.
The mob boss I mentioned earlier knew Gunnar was sleeping with his wife, so he ordered
a hit.
Sylvia worked alongside Ed - she was the one who placed the call to Jessica from the barn.
She hit the sleigh bells, which Jess heard during the call, before sending this poor
dead men out on the snowmobile with the murder weapon in tow.
PHEW, that’s a doozy.
He tries to split, but the fuzz arrives just in time.
Anne: “Jessica, the police are here.”
Uh...yes.
Very good, Anne.
Right, final thoughts.
This was a fantastic episode - I initially chose it because I thought it was going to
be goofy after seeing this clip in the introduction, but there wasn’t anything goofy after that.
I’m glad that clip drew me in because it was suspenseful, a little scary, well acted,
and the scheme the murderer came up with was just insane, I adored it.
Because there wasn’t really a detective cramping Jess’s style in this episode, she
got more of a chance to shine, and nobody was ragging on her because she was the most
qualified person to investigate this murder.
Before being outed as a hitman, people thought Ed was an actual cop and they STILL thought
Jess would be the better choice for this case, that’s amazing and hilarious.
The part that stays in my mind the most was the shower scene - it was appropriately scary
and gruesome - almost on the level of a horror movie.
I’ve never seen so much blood presented in a Murder, She Wrote episode; when I saw
it for the first time I was genuinely unsettled.
There’s something disturbing about murder scenes that happen in the shower - I’m not
saying it’s ALL Psycho’s fault… but...yeah it’s all Psycho’s fault.
I have a soft spot for mysteries that happen in ski lodges, which I realize is very specific
and not exactly a genre of its own, but I find them scary because a lodge is a place
of comfort, of ugly sweaters, hot chocolate, singing and dancing, and when that is disrupted
by a tragedy all that coziness becomes tainted and skewed.
So for me this was a very successful episode that had more serious tones, versus the light-hearted,
cheesy ones, and I recommend giving it a watch.
If nothing else, you get to see this ridiculous clip AND hear the best line in any Murder,
She Wrote episode ever.
Gunnar: “Just working on my deltoids papa bear.”
If you like this setting as much as I do, also check out the adventure game “Enclosure”,
which REALLY does the “Stuck in the mountains” trope VERY well.
If you have an episode you are dying to see me cover, please leave a suggestion in the
comments, and until then, happy sleuthing.
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my video on Snow White, Blood Red.
I hope you enjoyed it because I have a whole series of Murder, She Wrote videos, but first!
Patreon!
The website where you can give me money just because you like me?
Do you like me?
Do you like my show?
Consider tossing a few bucks at me and get some rewards and stuff!
If you’re not sure if my content is for you and you need to see more in order to make
an informed decision, then I have you covered.
On the right is a video I did on R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, and on the left I have
the very first episode of Murder, She Wrote that I covered!
Enjoy, and as always, I’ll see you in the next one.