The Murder's in the Mail: Rate this episode

[Cindy]

Rate this one too. Thanks!

[queensgirl]

I voted 7. Very 'busy' script going off in many directions at once, but still a lot of laughs. Good. ;D

[gamera]

I loved the three stooges references in the episode. Funny stuff

[Veronica]

I voted 10. I love this episode especially this moment when they break in hotel. It's so funny

[queensgirl]

An old joke about joining the military goes, “Meet interesting people. And kill them.” In this episode, our detectives almost wind up on the wrong end of that equation.

We see a man arriving at the airport. There is a hubbub at the gate. Flight 772 from Lisbon either crashed or was blown up. The man says he was supposed to be on that plane, but switched at the last minute. Lucky him.

He goes to make a phone call using a card, but it won’t work. The customer service person says someone called to cancel his account. The operator won’t change his mind despite the man answering i.d. questions.

Over at Blue Moon, there is a money shortage just as bad. Agnes flips through a pile of bills. Maddie says she is desperate to find a way to save money—“Rent less expensive furniture, cheaper offices.” In comes David, with the solution. Or something.

He’s ordered a piano, which they’ll need help moving in, but not the pool table, which they can “lower to the roof with a chopper.”

Hayes does not exactly take the news well. “This isn’t real. I’m dreaming this,” she rasps.

David goes outside and gives a pep talk to the moving men, who are already trying to jam the piano through the doorway. Maddie says they can leave, she won’t be paying. She turns down their protests.

David explains he got the idea from a book of maverick business advice, “Being Second Stinks,” by one J.C. Caron. (!) How can they pay for all this, Maddie wonders, without a client?

“Already got one,” David cheerfully reassures her. It’s a bill collection agency, the Easy Credit Assurance Company. “I’ve…had occasion to work with them in the past.” Blue Moon will get to keep half of any fees they dig up.

Maddie says she feels sorry for people in a tight spot and wouldn’t be able to shake them down. David reassures her their targets will only be those who have refused to pay their bills, not those who can’t do it at all. Hayes still doesn’t like it. David asks her to let them try just once, to see if it works. “Maddie…trust me.”

“If it’s so easy to get money out of these people, then why didn’t ECAC get it themselves?”

Good question. Crazy answer: “Why didn’t Detroit make smaller cars before Japan? Why didn’t those cereal companies put two scoops of raisins in from the get-go? Why didn’t Donny marry Marie? Who knows? Doesn’t matter. Their loss is our gain.”

Cut to the man from the airport arriving at his building. The elevator attendant notices he must have “had a lot of work done on [his] face.”

Meanwhile, the gumshoes have set off in search of the first name on the list. It’s Larry Henderson, a poet who lives with his mother and couldn’t come up with $3,400 of his car bill. Maddie says they have no way of knowing if the man is just in some unfortunate personal trouble. David has no sympathy, as no exculpatory issues were mentioned in the report.

They walk up to the house. Maddie continues to protest the idea. “We can’t bully this man. People are fundamentally good, present company excluded, and I believe if you give them a chance to live up to their obligations, they’ll rise to the occasion.”

David resists the sugary treatment. He says she can make the speech at their next stop, but this one is his. “I like to make money the old-fashioned way—scare the creep.”

Dave approaches the house and yells to Larry that they are from ECAC and won’t leave until they get a check. Larry comes out to say hi. He is roughly the size of the car they were driving. Yikes.

They head out with no money obtained from Mr. Henderson. David refuses to feel down, promising they’ll clean up with the next stop. How could they have known this guy would be tough? Maddie says he failed, and by their agreement, the case is now over and done.

Time to check in with the shadowy figure from the airport. He stops in a church, takes a look at the rest of the people and decides it’s safe to go to confession. He tells the priest it’s been 42 years since the last time he did this. However, he’s not really here to pray for forgiveness.

The priest says he’ll “need time to prepare” for something—“these things take time!” It’s safe to say the good cleric may not be who he seems.

“I have a letter I will trade,” the mystery man continues. “You guys are supposed to help me out in situations like these!” He doesn’t want to lose his life if things go wrong. He needs “cover.”

“I’m just a courier, I’ll do what I can,” the reverend promises. “I’ll have someone from the agency contact you. That’s the best I can do.”

Next we see people from an agency, indeed—our Blue Mooners. “This isn’t the way back to the office,” Maddie wonders.

“Yes, it is, we just have to make one little pit stop,” David rebuts. “You’re not going to give up after just one little setback?”

“Did it ever occur to you that the only reason your friends at ECAC would give you a chance to collect money from these people is that they know it’s impossible to collect money from these people?” Maddie scoffs. David jokes about it. Maddie answers, “Wake up! They sent you out to get money from Paul Bunyan!”

“You wake up,” David snaps. “I’m doing this for us, for the good of the company! If we don’t figure out some way to bring some money into the company, I can see the writing on the wall…and if I have to go out there and get another job—you may not know this, but there are people out there who think that I’m not a very good detective! Go figure!...One more try?”

He wins, but only on the contingent that Maddie be allowed to do the talking this time. David says he’s willing to do anything that’ll work. Again, he says, “Trust me. I feel very lucky with this next guy.”

He’ll be the only one to say that about the man they will meet.

The gentleman is now taking a cab to the next place on his route. He asks to be let out early. The driver is a little surprised, but does as told, cheered up by the promise of extra money if he comes back tomorrow.

Maddie and David are looking for one Roy Hirsch at his apartment building. Seems he’s not in. They keep pressing the buzzer. The mystery man is on his way up—via the unconventional method of the ledge outside the window. He sees that there is a crossbow rigged to fire at whoever next comes in the door. Thank goodness, then, that he breaks in and disarms the weapon. He also picks up the phone when Maddie calls.

Hayes launches into her good-hearted spiel about “this terrible situation you’ve gotten yourself into.” She is cleverly non-specific.

“Who are you? Are you with the agency?” the man asks.

“Yes,” Maddie says, failing to say whether she means Blue Moon or ECAC, “but I haven’t come here to bully you—I’ve come here to reason with you, to appeal to your sense of fair play.” Success! The buzzer sounds, and they open the door.

“Gotta admit, I’m impressed,” says Dave.

Hirsch goes into the bathroom. A special guest is waiting there. He clocks Roy in the head. Battle is joined.

Maddie and David, unaware of the mayhem up ahead, walk toward the room. “I don’t know why you’re so surprised,” Maddie speculates. “It’s like I said before. People are fundamentally good.”

Cut to a quick view of the men pounding the daylights out of each other…

Maddie knocks on the front door of the apartment and asks nicely for Hirsch to come meet them. “I guess rising to the occasion takes time,” David laughs.

Maddie tries the polite approach a few more times. Not knowing why the man is otherwise occupied, she switches to the fire-and-brimstone method. “Stuff it,” she says to David, then faces the door again. “Hirsch. What do you say you haul your ashes over to this door and let us in before we have to come in there and get rough with you?”

“Now, Maddie,” Dave pipes up, “there’s no need to bully this man!”

After a little more yelling, she puts foot to door and walks in uninvited. Hirsch is sitting across the room. Maddie crosses and tries to give Roy his checkbook. It drops out of his hands. Maybe he just needs a little help? She tries again. It falls again.

“Stick him with a pin!” Dave suggests.

“I will not!”

“Yank out one of his nose hairs.”

“Addison?!…”

“Rip off all your clothes and see if he reacts!...You’re right, that would kill me.” David goes to solve the problem by himself. He steps up to Mr. Hirsch and gives him a high-five. It knocks the unresponsive man sideways, along with china on the table next to him. Clearly the fellow is no longer in much need of oxygen.

The detectives run to get help. The man who killed Roy has taken his place, is dressed in his robe and claims to be the real man of that name. Maddie says he must have moved the body, but a check of the front room shows it’s nowhere to be found. The police officer says they don’t have a warrant or probable cause, so the place is off limits. Can’t have a murder without a dead body.

Maddie is irate as they storm out. They were humiliated by the cop. David says either the officer or the man in the apartment could not be who they said they were. “We are investigators, we should investigate! I know what you’re going to say—‘Who’s the client?’” David says they can improvise. “You think Alexander Graham Bell sat back in his workshop and said, ‘Why am I inventing the telephone? Nobody else has one. Who am I going to call? Heck no. He went out there and did what he had to do—invented the telephone, dialed a number until people got good and sick of all that ringing! They went out and bought a phone so they could answer it!” Maddie at first looks askance, then nods. Maybe they can work together after all.

They go back to the building. Maddie thinks they won’t be allowed in. Someone approaches. David grabs the phone and makes up a tale of needing to see their near-deaf Uncle Leon. They’ve got the batteries for his hearing aid. The woman lets them in the building. David hugs her. “God bless you.”

“God bless you,” the woman returns.

“And heaven help us all,” Maddie says, rolling her eyes.

When they get to the right floor, David knocks on the apartment door and hides. No one answers. Then he sprays shaving cream in a bag (sure, I always carry that) and steps on it. They finally break in by slipping Maddie’s credit card in the door rim. The place is empty—was it robbed?

David looks to the side and thinks he sees someone. He swings his fist before he realizes that was his own reflection in a mirror. Ouch!

Maddie wraps his hand in a handkerchief. Then she looks up at the mirror. There’s an envelope stuck in the frame. They take it quickly.

There’s the sound of someone else coming in. The sleuths rush to the window ledge just in time, and watch through the panes. It’s another suited lug. They shimmy down the ledge, then when it’s safe, duck into a neighboring room.

Maddie asks, again, why they’re doing this. David opens the envelope to see Hirsch’s passport. He says they’re doing it to find out who killed him. The passport shows Roy was a Russian spy. “Sorry I asked,” Maddie laments.

Eventually things return to normal, at least for now. Soon it’s time to go back to work. Agnes picks up the phone and rattles off a good poem. The person on the other end is not so appreciative. It’s just the coffee shop.

Maddie and David march up the hall. Hayes says a spy case should be turned over to the government. David says he has something to show her. It’s a gun. “This is for serious business,” he informs a terrified Maddie. “This is a serious case.” David has another paper from the envelope. He tells her it must be a secret message.

Agnes is happy to see them. There’s a client waiting! “Roy Hirsch.”

Wait a minute…Roy is cooling his heels in the Land of Beyond. It won’t be safe to check into Mr. Addison’s office after all. They head down to the garage. There they spot one of the henchmen. David offers to set up a distraction, so Maddie can run around the other side and get the car.

He goes to lean on a pillar and plays the harmonica. When the other man notices, Dave switches to singing ‘My Girl.’ “Some echo, huh?” Addison wonders. The man is not thrilled with the joke. David sits on a car next to him. The alarm goes off. David doesn’t stand for it: he shoots the car.

Maddie comes to the rescue. She drives up and Dave climbs in the window. There are now two thugs chasing them. The lugs get into separate cars and follow. Time to step on it!

David urges Maddie to cut down an alleyway. She is frightened; he grabs the wheel. She guns the car forward, back, and every which way down the narrow side lanes. “Don’t yell at me. I can’t concentrate,” she pleads, “and if I can’t concentrate, I can’t drive!”

This is no time for caution, however. Addison pushes her into yet another crazy turn. The pursuers bump her car, then each other’s. One crashes. One to go. David says turn again—but this time it leads to a dead end. Great sense of direction, Addison…

The other man gets out, and they do too. “CIA,” he announces. Oh! Now he tells them!

Back at the office, he explains the late Hirsch was a double agent who was posing as a Russian spy. He was found out in Lisbon, and another spy killed him but couldn’t find the paper he was looking for. That’s why this agent was chasing the detectives.

The Russians were planning to kill a Chinese diplomat. The identity of the target is in the Russian note. David gives it to him, and the man leaves. Maddie says she’s glad this will all be resolved peacefully, with a phone call. That’s just it, David suddenly figures—why didn’t he ask to use their phone right there, the easy way? He must really be the one who was sent to do the killing!

Off to the banquet hall where the diplomats have their shindig. The gumshoes try to talk their way in. Doesn’t work. They resort to sneaking in a side door and rustling up some waiters’ outfits. Maddie’s is the kind she might use if she were straightening up a parlor. In France. A hundred years ago. She does not appreciate the frilly and abbreviated design. David thinks it looks smashing on her. “Just remember, you’re dressed like that for America!” he joyfully declares. “And I, for one, salute you!”

“Salute you, Addison,” she mutters.

“That’s good, I like that…look waitery,” he advises, and they run into the dining hall.

Maddie pours drinks from a pitcher, while David goes around serving wine. They look for the Chinese and Russian particulars. David bumps into a man who meets the description of the Chinese gentleman. Then he turns to see their pursuer from before, the fake ‘CIA’/real enemy, and the man asks him, “Why are you here?”

Uh-oh. Think fast. “I’m here tonight because we’ve replaced this banquet hall’s real coffee with frozen crystals,” David splutters. “Maddie?!”

Hayes plasters a cream pie in the agent’s face. She twists his arm and drops him to the floor. “David?” she calls. Soon other guests are angry with each other and join in the food melee. There is a wrestling match for the spy’s gun.

“Who says you can’t bring the countries of the world together and settle their differences in a civilized and orderly way?” David says. He crows as a pie catches Maddie right in the face. He meets the same fate himself seconds later.

We assume, but do not see, that the proper authorities come in and save the day, our detectives make it home scot-free, if not pie-free, and maybe they even pick up a paycheck as a reward for staving off an international incident. Or, a warrant for causing one. Who knows?

This episode is rare in that it does not wrap up safely at Blue Moon headquarters; also, there is very little romantic subtext. With the exception of David’s continuing need to prove his intelligence and talents to Maddie, we hardly see anything in the way of the usual personality themes. Still, it’s an entertaining story with a tricky plot, and you’ll never be able to hear the phrase “mole on his nose” quite the same way again.

[Johanna]

Maddie and David really know how to whip up an evenings entertainment! ;D I love when they get ridiculed as investigators, like when they report the murder of Roy Hirsch and the other Roy Hirsch opens the door. Not dead. None of our detectives are superior to the other one, they just have different ways to..eh..explore and investigate. They're doing so good, they even solve somekind of case! There are many funny scenes in this episode, regardless if you follow the storyline or not! I may have voted 9, I'm almost sure I did.

[davnee]

This episode gets an 8 from me purely on the ending. The Dr. Seuss/pie stuff is brilliant and innovative. But the rest of the episode is very weak and only worthy of a 5 or 6.

[Frontier]

A nice episode to end a very short first season, but makes a lot of promises for the future.

The end scene with the foodfight is brilliant, in the way it escalates from the casual boring-to-death diplomatic-relations dinners. I have to mention also the scene with the "control face man" and the dialogue about the man with "a mole on his nose". Brilliant. And finally one sexy waitress-Maddie

An 8.

[Turbo Grom]

I adore some D&M scenes, such Davids entrance in car in garage, Maddies driving, "space for tips", well everything was great

[graycav56]

I just watched this again yesterday, in between NHL games. I thought it was a pretty entertaining episode, as long as you didn't get too worried about loose ends and holes in the plot.

It didn't really develop the characters much beyond what we already knew, but heck, it was fun to watch, had a chase scene, international spies, pies in the face, inept gunplay by David and Maddie in a wonderfully interesting maid outfit.

What else can one ask for?

[rose35]

I see i never rated this one , I give this one an 8 It sure has some great funny as anything scenes with M/D in it! The driving scenes are so so funny! ROFL @ UNCLE LEON
An entertaining episode all around

[dedaved]

Rating: 9
The plot is wonderfully convoluted and silly in that way that only this show could do. This one really fires on all cylinders. Fun, fast-paced, busy and features one of the funniest minutes of TV ever (you know what scene I mean). Best episode of the first season and one of the most underrated episodes of the series!