Jessica Narrates: “Tonight on Murder, She Wrote.” Jessica: “Oh, what happened to
my MacGuffin??” You know, I’ve always wanted to hear Jess talk about MacGuffins.
I don’t know why, but that really did it for me.
Hey everyone, PushingUpRoses here and today we’re looking at a season 12 episode of
Murder, She Wrote called Murder Among Friends, which could also be called, “Murder, She
Wrotes takes a swing at Friends. Yes, friends. The show.
So by the end of Murder, She Wrote’s run, things were lookin’ a little bleak.After
11 years, CBS decided to move the show from it’s Sunday, 8pm timeslot to Thursday, same
time, pinning it against Friends, a show that appealed to a younger crowd. Not only was
CBS looking to target a younger audience, sponsors also preferred the more youthful
shows, so Murder, She Wrote was completely snubbed. Lansbury responded, “I’m shattered.
What can I say? I really feel very emotional about it. I just felt so disappointed that
after all the years we had Sunday night at 8, suddenly it didn’t mean anything. It
was like gone with the wind.”
Because everyone involved was pretty heartbroken, and there was not much they could do, they
thought: “You know what? Let’s just make fun of Friends!” And they did. They really
did. Jess: “ Who would’ve thought a group of 20-something young people sitting around
all day long discussing their sexuality would turn out to be a top TV show.
The episode begins with a familiar tune. (Singing: I’ll be there for yooouuuuu!) Then we cut
to some patty cake, as ya do, followed by Jessica, who is educating the masses about
the MacGuffin for a television program. Her time is cut short because the producer is
more concerned with the hit show, Buds. Yes, Buds. It rolls off the tongue so well, doesn’t
it. Samantha: “Bug?” Bud: “No, eh heh… Bud, Deh, B-U-D.” Anyway, the staff writer,
Gene, and Dyan, the Pheebs look alike, discuss a rumor going around the set; one of the characters
might get killed off, at the suggestion of new management. How many John Denver look
alikes are there in this series? The producer, Rikki, wants to keep all of them around, and
her husband tells her she should probably work with the management. This irks her. Rikki:
“Well maybe we can save some money by firing you.” Leo: “ How come you talk nice to
everybody but me?” Rikki: “Because you’re my husband.” And also your hair is very
silly. Rikki’s husband learns about the patty cake and is not too happy that his wife
is sleeping with the Joey character. Joey: “How YOU doin’?”
The detective in his episode is played by the same actor who played the horny butcher
in The Sins of Castle Cove, meaning also that, yes! The cop from Wayne’s World is back.
Wayne: “No way!” Cop: “Way!” His son plays one of the characters on Buds, and he
wants to make sure it stays that way. He also looks mildly constipated when he talks. Joey-Clone
laments to the Rachel-Clone about sleeping with Rikki, claiming he did it because he
doesn’t have talent and wants to keep his job. Rikki, having learned nothing from Billy
Joel, interrupts a tender moment and leads him away. Timmy: “You know what black widow
spiders do with their discarded mates?” Hug them and kiss them and love them forever…?
This guy, Timmy, meets up with Jess and admits that he believes he’ll be the one let go
from the show. Jess asks him why he feels that way, to which he responds: Timmy: “Just
something in my gut.” Jess: “Listen Timmy.” that’s just the cheese you ate earlier.
Jess attempts to reassure him about his talents and also tells him that television will not
be the end all be all for him. Jess: “It doesn’t begin or end with some television
comedy, believe me.” It actually begins and ends on Twitter.
Rachel clone drops by and tells him that the script has been rewritten completely and they
need to go to an early shoot the next day. Rikki and her husband, who is the co-executive
producer, discuss the final script, which will kill off a character, and she blatantly
tells him she will be putting the final scene in her safe. I have never seen anybody look
so proud and somewhat sexually aroused by a hidden safe before, she is REALLY into it.
So into it, that she tells someone where it is. Her husband shows her the photos of her
infidelity, and she’s like “Yep, I definitely did that.”
In a bit of a huff, he yells at the PI who has been spying on Rikki, then cryptically
tells him to make it go away. Make...what go away? That sounds like a hit, but the dialogue
in this episode is so unclear that everyone’s motives and behaviors are all so vague. Even
the PI has no idea of what to do. Rikki pitches a new series idea for Jess, asking if she’d
be interested in working with her, only to be interrupted by Gene. Rikki: “Angling
at this and angling at that…” Gene: “I-it...it’s you know, camera directions.” Rikki: “Well
it’s not MY style…” Rikki gets all in his face for using terminology like “angling”
in his rewrites, and instructs him to write more like her. The next day, everyone is rehearsing
for the early morning shoot, with no idea who will be written off the show. Everyone
is on edge, including the director. Director: “Those kids are scared stiff, some of them
are going to be filing for unemployment next week.” Rikki: “Well they may have you
for company, Joyful.” Is this episode just trying to make EVERYONE a suspect? To add
extra anxiety, Rikki also breaks off her extra marital affairs with Joey clone, and boy oh
boy, does he have a SEARING response. Joey Clone: “Whatever.”
May I just say that Lansbury is such a charming actress even when she is playing a character
who is ALSO acting for a television show. This little meta moment is so pleasant. Timmy
comes back, seeking out Jess’s advice because his Dad is overstepping his bounds with trying
to keep him on the show, and the advice she gives is… eh...Jess: “Do you know what
makes Alfred Hitchcock movies SO special?” The blonde actresses?...Jess: “That’s
part of it!” Meanwhile, Pheebs clone is having a hush hush conversation about leaving
the show to be in a Rob Reiner production, but she is stuck in a hefty contract with
Rikki. Also, did you know Rob Reiner directed Misery? I just learned that the other day
and it blew my mind. That was a good movie.
So I don’t know what it is about Jessica that makes people want to spew their private
lives at her. She finds Leo sitting in the dark, and he proceeds to tell her about his
marital problems with Rikki, about getting a divorce… you know. Things you don’t
typical say to a near stranger. Jess: “I think you’re telling all this to the wrong
person.” He agrees with Jess and says he’ll be honest with Rikki after that dramatic monologue.
Leo: “Do you need anything?” Yeah, could you get me a coffee?
So this woman’s dead. (clip) As you could probably guess, Rikki is this episode’s
murder victim, her television award recklessly dropped beside her body. It sure did take
a long time to get to the actual murder; we are more than halfway through the episode
at this point. Gotta set up all those red herrings I suppose. Jess calls the motive
right away, though it should be pretty obvious to everyone. The safe is open, and yet a ton
of money is still there, so clearly someone wanted to read the final part of the script.
Despite it being a complete conflict of interest, the Detective Flint, Tim’s dad, is on the
case.
The rest of the episode is pretty much a muddled mess. They find the final page is not stolen,
but still in the safe, so Leo takes it to the set to tell everyone who was written off.
It was Dyan. Joey-Clone: “Rikki killed YOU?” Dyan: “I’m the one.” Poor Pheebs. Leo
informs the crew that Gene will rewrite the ending so that everyone can say, which is
met with an interesting response from Dyan. Dyan: “Absolutely...I wouldn’t want to
be anywhere else at a time like this…” I’m having a good time… Not…
In the bizarre scene that follows, Dyan starts singing Rikki’s praises. Jessica makes the
note that Rikki loved her character the most, which is why she gave Dyan a pair of glasses
identical to hears. Dyan: “My eyesight’s 20/20 but Rikki said I was funnier with the
glasses.” Can confirm. People with glasses are hilarious. After Dyan tells her that “Rikki
saw the world at a different angle”, Jess has a minor epiphany moment. The new script
had the word “angling” in” which isn’t Rikki’s writing style, it’s Gene’s.
He went to sneak a peek at the final script and realized that Rachel-Clone would be the
one written out, keeping Dyan in her contract and away from bigger opportunities, so in
a love drunk haze, he rewrote the scene and put it back in the safe. This means he FOUND
the body after someone had already opened the safe, read the scene, swapped it out,
and then just...left. That was certainly a choice. It also means that someone else was
in that office before Gene.
Detective Flint starts to appreciate Jess’s insight and clever methods. Jess: “Are you
saying you are interested in my thoughts, lieutenant?” Flint: “Only the good ones.”
Ooo, we can save the bad ones for later…
Leo meets with his PI, who is acting EXTREMELY suspicious. He asks for a raise, and Leo is
like “What for?” And the PI is like “I’m not telling you but make me executive producer
of your show” and I am like, what?
Okay, let’s move this along because this whole thing is getting screwy. The cops figure
out that Rikki was not killed with her Emmy, but with her new laptop. It makes sense, as
laptops weighed 500 pounds in the mid 90s. Perfect murder weapon. Timmy’s fingerprints
were found on the laptop because he assisted her with it earlier, and is arrested. His
Dad discovered that the Buds weren’t paid equally. Timmy was being underpaid, and up
until now Detective Flint was fabricating ALL KINDS of ridiculous alibis for him, but
this? Clearly being underpaid caused him to go ballistic, so he arrests his own son.
Jessica doesn’t buy any of this bullshit and confronts Flint in his office. He says
he doesn’t believe his own son could commit murder either and starts spewing HIS weird
melodramatic concerns. Maybe he pushed him too hard, maybe he wasn’t there as a Dad,
blah blah blah… Despite knowing it wasn’t Timmy who committed
the Murder, Jess DOESN’T know who DID… until! The eureka moment. The classic JB Fletcher
epiphany. While discussing the film Strangers On A Train on her educational program, the
lens scene reminds her of something. Dyan’s glasses. The glasses she found on Rikki’s
desk, at the murder scene had no perscription in them, they were the prop pair Dyan wore
for filming. When she murdered Rikki, she accidentally left her fake glasses and grabbed
the wrong pair.
Jess: “You accidentally left them here when you killed Rikki.” Dyan: “Rikki was my
friend…” Rikki is nobody’s friend. If Rikki were
an ice cream flavor, she’d be pralines and dick.”
Rikki would not let Dyan out her 4 year contract, causing her to miss the movie opportunity
with Rob Reiner, and it made her so angry that she whacked her on the head with a laptop.
Whew! Thart laptop swing is EXTRA.
She is arrested, everyone else keeps their jobs, Timmy comes back, and Jessica is made
an honorary bud. “BUD. DEH.” Oh goodie.
I’m going to be honest with you; this episode was really underwhelming. It’s kind of fun
to dissect as you go because there are so many characters and different motivations
to consider, but the reason that makes it fun is also the reason that makes it bad.
I never got attached to any of the characters, I found the writing and editing sloppy, and
there wasn’t enough Jessica. Also, what in the fuck happened to that private eye?
He said all those cryptic things about deserving a raise, implied he killed Rikki, and we never
see him again. If I may be frank, I think the writers were more concerned with taking
a swing at Friends rather than creating a good episode. If you’re going to jab at
something, you can’t just have some snarky lines and insert some look alike characters,
it also has to be good. And even the jabs are pretty subtle; if you didn’t know about
the timeslot debacle, this almost reads as an homage. I wanted this episode to fall into
the so corny it’s good category, but the novelty of the Friends parody wore off quickly,
and the mystery itself was on the weak side. I mostly watched it to see how blatant the
Friends ripoff was, and… yep. This is Friends all right.
Murder Among Friends - watch it if you want to, but if you’d rather not, that’s fine.
If there’s an episode of Murder, She Wrote you are just DYING to see me cover, please
leave a suggestion in the comments, and until next time, happy sleuthing.
Hey everyone, thanks for watching my video on Murder Among Friends; if you are interested
in more Murder Mystery related content, I do have more to show you, but first!
Have you heard of Patreon? Yes, Patreon, where you, the viewer can offer me small amounts
of money in exchange for rewards! Why would you do this, you ask? Because I really need
a new pair of boots. Boots aren’t cheap, let me tell you.
If you don’t want to give me money, that’s understandable; you can like and share this
video and that’s worth millions...I gueeeeess…
Here’s some other things to watch before you go! On the left we have a review of Miss
Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and on the right we have my last episode of That Time on Murder,
She Wrote, where things got very, very naughty. I hope you enjoy them, and as always, I’ll
see you in the next one.