The strangest things roam the night—and the most desperately normal, too. Some are looking for mischief, others for adventure, and some just wish they weren’t so alone.
This is the first episode where we see David secretly cares about Maddie. It is not the last where he uses liquor to dull the embarrassment of the realization. Nor is it the only time we’ll see him get intensely jealous and try to run off a man he thinks is unsuitable for her. What he’d really like to see is something he can, in a moment of supreme loneliness, only admit to the walls: “She should go for me.”
Open to the sound of a radio host reading a creepy story. It is important that the camera first presents a variety of images, allowing the dominant theme to instead be the sound of the announcer’s voice. We also see that different people are listening to the show for different reasons. There are the busy crew of a factory, a homeless person searching through the trash, and a night owl driving around trying to kill boredom. The subject of the play is a woman searching for real love despite a condition that sets her apart from society.
Then the host switches to calls from listeners. A man named Rick wants to ask out a woman from work. He is truly scared at the prospect and says every time he tries to approach her, he “wants to die.”
“You’re not going to die,” Paul McCain comforts him. If Rick gives up, how will he know if the woman wasn’t the one he was supposed to be with?
After a prank caller, the next one is Zelda, also worried about someone she loves. She, however, doesn’t get to hear Paul’s advice. A gunman breaks into the studio and mows down Paul where he sits.
Revolting news to all; exciting news to some.
Cut to the Blue Moon office, where David wants to take the case—but Maddie wonders who would be the hiring party, since the subject of discussion is dead and no one has stepped forward to officially ask them to do anything. David says it doesn’t matter if they have to work for free. The publicity will do them a world of good. Just landing on the front page of the newspapers will generate enough notoriety to bring plenty of curiosity-seekers through the door. Presumably, some of these people will also have money and problems.
David: Fate is knocking!
Maddie: I don’t hear a thing!
As Maddie tries to leave the office, she is met by the Blue Moon employees, who are all abuzz about the McCain incident. Dave continues to press suit and finally Maddie caves in, admitting she herself doesn’t know why. “Cancel Dr. Fishbein,” Maddie orders Agnes.
“Already did,” the secretary says.
“Already did?” Maddie raises an eyebrow.
“Is she great or what?” David enthuses. Of course, he had it planned all along.
They head for the station, where the cops are going through the scene.
M: “David, David, David, all this blood and violence!”
D: “I know, I get giddy just thinking about it!”
They talk to the station manager, Sonny Preston, who doesn’t understand why they are there—he didn’t hire them, and he doesn’t know of anyone who did. David follows up with the quick lie that this information is protected by p.i./client privilege—and apparently Preston buys it.
The station manager says Paul kept his days free so he could conduct some pretty interesting ‘assignments’ with married women. He gives them some photos of the late host and tapes of the show so they can get an idea of the man behind the story. They go to the car.
David is overjoyed at the prospect of such an exciting case. “Sex, violence, hit tunes—if we crack this thing, they’ll make a movie about it!”
Ms. Hayes is, here’s a shocker, a little less pleased. She says McCain was “immoral” for exploiting his fans and messing around in other people’s marriages, and got what he deserved.
“You don’t know that!” David rejoins. David ought to know from questionable morals…
“You’re weird,” he tells her. (Wait a minute. What happened to his ‘judge not’ attitude of a second ago?)
“This is very meaningful. Humpty Dumpty is calling
me cracked.” (She may have something of a point here—why is it his right to live his life the way he wants, but not hers?)
“You’re stiff and tense.”
“Not with any other person. Just with you.” (Whoa!)
“I make you stiff and tense because I’m the only person in your life! I’ll bet you’re in bed, alone, by yourself, alone, every night by 9:30!”
“Hah! There are plenty of people in my life.
Plenty.”
“Name one. You can’t. Because there is none!”
David says she doesn’t want to take the case because she is ‘repressed’ and can’t stand the fact that everyone else has a love life but her.
She shoves him bodily onto the street.
Dave picks himself off the ground and watches the car speed away. “Was it something I said?”
Oh, dear…
Not one to let a little assault and battery interrupt her day, Maddie heads home, for the comforts of routine. She eats dinner, places just the one dish in the washer, feeds the fish and is ready for bed at precisely…9:30. Furious that she unknowingly conformed to David’s low expectations, Maddie defiantly gets into the car again, off in search of adventure.
She does not find it. Instead, she must settle for watching other people. Maddie cannot bring herself to pull the car over and actually
do anything, whether it’s stopping in a bar or a theater or what have you: all she does is stare as others walk into the movies, a couple kisses and everything else interesting passes her by. She’s the one moving, via the car, but her life is in stasis, and she is almost afraid to take part in the outside world.
Maddie winds up at home again. She has a glass of wine and listens to the tapes of Paul McCain’s show.
“I’m 34 years old, halfway home,” he says in one, “and all I have to show for my life is, well, not much.” Echoing the thoughts of his newest listener?
Paul’s views on love vary. One minute he’ll lament the fact that some “committee” turned love into “relationships,” and then he’ll warn people not to miss out on “a chance to be with somebody pretty great.”
This couldn’t be a bigger message to our two protagonists if he put it on a billboard.
Next day at the office, things are a little different. David walks into Maddie’s office to apologize. There’s a kicker for starts.
What’s even more eerie is that she says the same.
For the first time, they agree—
and they’re still not listening to each other!Maddie says she wants to finish the case. Maybe Paul McCain wasn’t such a sleaze after all. The opinions on the tapes were rather thoughtful and varied, and besides, somebody ought to find out what’s really going on in this saga. David’s tone is surprisingly quiet and considerate. He says he’ll go along, but “I just want you to remember, you owe me one.” Okay, forget what I said about considerate.
Hayes decides they should go look at McCain’s place of residence. Then she asks, “Did you come in here to tell me something?”
There’s a subtle moment here that could have turned into something. It whistles by like a train you just missed.
“Me?” David says. “No. Nothing on my mind except you…and this luxuriously thick head of hair.”
They go to Paul’s apartment. Maddie stares at the building. David jokes about getting a warrant. It’s interesting to note whether private detectives, who have state licenses but are not actually sworn police officers, would actually need one, and there’s also the fact that Paul, as far as they know at the moment, was the
victim and not a suspect in a crime. Still, David doesn’t let little things like compunctions or locks stop him. He breaks out a stick pin and jimmies the door open.
The apartment is well decked out, replete with photographs and even an ornate portrait of a lady friend of Paul’s. Dave figures he had a generous patron, one of those women for whom he had to keep his daytimes free.
That woman herself is the next to walk in the door. She is accompanied by Mr. Preston. The woman hears the detectives as they try to run and hide. She pulls a gun and screams that if her husband were coming to get her, she could sic every lawyer in the book on him.
She won’t have to. The detectives step out into view and Addison successfully pleads for their lives. They’re here on business and besides, perhaps the missus ought not to shed so many tears over a marriage that had gotten to this state.
Laura Boyd explains that her husband, Arthur, owned Paul’s station and many others, and had long since ceased being a very pleasant person with whom to spend time. Same goes for her, I guess: “Paul wasn’t rich, so I had Arthur. Arthur wasn’t rich, so I had Paul.”
Maddie asks what Paul was really like. Laura says, “He was a wonderful man, a terrific man—I loved him very much. But the truth, he wasn’t quite as good to be with as he was to listen to. He was just wonderful on the radio. Is that a terrible thing to say?”
Examples of moral purity, for which the idealistic Maddie had been searching, are few and far between in this case. In true noir fashion, it’s a world of shades of grey.
The detectives walk out. David says Arthur Boyd is a good suspect, since he had a strong motive. Maddie is a little more at sea. “Why is it that the people who have someone always want someone else, and the people who have no one always get left?”
David doesn’t miss a beat. “Come again?”
“Never mind,” Maddie says. “I was just thinking out loud.”
“No, don’t ‘never mind’ me, I want to understand this! You’re hung up on Paul McCain, aren’t you?” The answer must be that she has a crush on the deceased.
Maddie gripes that he’s jealous. David says no, he’s worried. “These things concern me, Maddie…I am not jealous of a dead man!” She repeats her complaint. “Hey, lady, look!” he finally bellows. “For me to be jealous of him, he’d have to have something that I want. Which he doesn’t.” This bitter declaration could be taken one of two ways. Either David is saying Paul, as a dead man, could not hold Maddie’s attention in the real world, or he is denying that he himself has any interest in her.
Both of these will prove to be false. ;D
It starts to rain. Maddie sets her jaw and stares glumly. “Look, if I said something to upset you…” David begins.
“You couldn’t,” his partner spits. She is brushing him off, just as he did to her.
Next Maddie goes home by herself. She listens to more of Paul’s tapes. This time it’s the one about the caller who wants to see the lady from work. Paul says to see if she has things on her desk at work. And then what? We never learn, but the idea of snooping around for details of someone’s personal life has imprinted itself on the detective’s mind. She goes back to the apartment.
Once again it’s time for the stick pin trick. Maddie—who would never in a million years admit that she borrowed an idea from David—walks in and takes off her coat. She switches on a light. (Literally, making herself at home, in a place that does not belong to her.) We can see here how very far from normal Ms. Hayes is right now. This isn’t her. David may be right—she may, in fact, be breaking the law, detective license or no. Nevertheless, she has become far more interested in the case than when they first heard of it. Although ostensibly a prude and a stickler for the rules, Maddie here is willing to go further than the rules will allow. She has become quite dedicated to the case and doesn’t want to give up. Perhaps she is keen to prove she is not a wallflower and a loser like David thought she was—she
does have drive and daring after all. She will take this road wherever it goes.
Suddenly there is the noise of someone else around. Maddie knocks over the lamp and hurries out. The other person follows—none other than Paul!
It’s now pouring rain. Maddie runs down the block, but doesn’t get far before Paul catches up to her. “Just leave me alone, all right?” he pleads.
“I don’t understand. You’re alive!” a terrified Maddie returns.
David, meanwhile, has found other ways to occupy his time. He’s in a bar and has started to sing. Only it’s not really karaoke night. He improvises, with a pretzel for a microphone. The staff are strangely unappreciative. ;D They haul him up to the front for some coffee to sober him up. This effort does little good. David calls Maddie, but gets the answering machine. Furious, he hangs up.
The view switches back to McCain’s apartment. He tells the story of faking his own death so he could be with Laura. “She would be my life—but then, women have been doing that for men for years, right?” he asks an enraptured Maddie.
Again we cut to the bar. A miserable Dave is now even heavier into his drinking. Wait a minute, why are they serving him anymore? Oh, consarnit. “Can you believe she’s still not home?” David wails.
“Speaking of home!” the bartender advises.
“She thinks I’m weird. Kinky, unfeeling,” David grumbles, and suddenly we realize we are dealing with a very different subject indeed. Compared with the possible dishonesty of Paul’s alluring tales, here is David finally being
completely honest about his burgeoning feelings for his boss—and she isn’t even around to hear it. They are both using substitute people as a way to let their emotions go without having to actually pick up their courage and confront each other yet.
“I’m not, you know,” David continues, and as usual, this stunning confession is immediately covered up by a joke.
Over to Paul. He asks why Maddie came back.
“On the radio, you sounded like you had all the answers.” Suddenly we have to wonder why she was looking for someone to lead her like that. Maddie is ordinarily a free thinker and here she is, adrift and in dire need of help. You only need answers if you have too many questions.
“The rain stopped. I should be going.” Maddie stands to leave.
“About what I told you,” Paul asks.
“About what who told who?” Maddie promises. “We’ve never met, we’ve never spoken—you’re a dead man, Mr. McCain.” Looks like Paul has a shadow of a chance to get what he wanted anyway—and with the help of someone who once loathed him.
In the bar, David is really going to have to place his orders quickly. They’ve put the chairs up and pretty much everyone else is gone. Addison still rambles on, slumped in drunken misery over the countertop.
“You know what I think? I think she’s hung up on this other guy. Not that I care, I don’t care. I’m just hurt, that’s all. I mean, I think if she’s gonna go for somebody, she should go for me! That’s all. Not that she
has to go for me. I mean, I don’t—really care about anything, I don’t—okay, all right, all right, I’m insecure! I admit it, it’s out, all right, okay? It’s normal, right? Did I happen to mention this other guy is dead?...Sure has calmed down here.” The room is now empty but for him. “Oh, I guess I’ve had my limit. You and me have to get together and do this again sometime, Stinky, we think alike!” He falls off the chair. Now he has a good view of the floor. “Hey, Stinky, you missed a spot over here.” His heart must be breaking. Not to mention his liver.
Life must go on, however, and before we know it, it’s back to the office. Maddie drops off the mail at David’s room and walks across to her own. Where she discovers a guest, in a rather shabby condition.
David is quite literally hanging from the back of the door. How or why he got there, we’ll never know. All that matters is he’s
there, and boy does Maddie ever not like the idea. “What are you doing here? Why are you hanging on my door?”
David looks as if he spent the previous night
under the bar. “Cab driver kept trying to put me on a chair, and I kept sliding out!” Oh. That makes it better.
Oddly, Maddie feels sorry for him, instead of launching on a tirade, and helps him down. “You look awful.”
“Don’t you ‘David, David, David’ me, you wanton woman!” he blurts. Already, at this very early stage of the game and only a few weeks of working together, he sees it as betrayal for her to be with someone else. When she objects, he opens fire again. “That’s what I called you, because that’s what you are. A wanton woman, a woman who’s wantin’! Don’t deny it, I know what I’m talking about—I called your house every fifteen minutes last night!”
Hayes is shocked. “You did? That’s so sweet!”
“Get your hands off me, you scarlet pimpernel!” Now he is the one whose sensitivity is easily bruised.
David further kids her about her supposed attraction to him. As usual, it’s projection, covering up his own feelings by pretending they are things he has realized about her. And as usual, he takes it just a
little too far. “We can’t very well have you out there on the streets of Los Angeles, filled with all these primal urges, embarrassing yourself and the agency, now can we?”
“Stop, while there’s still time,” she says, hopes now deflated like an overdone soufflé.
“I will be more than happy to accommodate any urges, passions or desires you may be filled with and find yourself unable to relieve.” He stares. “You understand the offer I’m making you here?”
She gives him a good swift kick.
“For your information, I spent last night with—“
“With who?” Immediately, he can’t stand not knowing. He must be doubly frustrated that for all he knows at this moment, he is still competing with a dead man.
Maddie at first won’t tell him anything. Finally, she caves in and says that Paul’s alive. Which means, she screams at David, “Because of you and your tissues and light bulbs, this agency has wasted two days on
nothing!”
“Paul McCain’s alive? I’ll kill him!” David splutters.
Just then, a call comes in. It’s the man himself. “McCain, you’ve got a lot of nerve being alive!” David snaps. Paul says he needs their help—Arthur Boyd was just found shot. David gives back the phone. ;D
Paul comes to the office. He says he looks like a suspect but couldn’t be—he’s a “coward.” David gives him a glare which shows he thinks the whole thing is a load of bunk. Nevertheless, Paul claims he and Laura were trying to find a way to move in together. He sneaked into Arthur’s office and saw the man dead. Did he shoot himself? Would Paul be caught and blamed instead?
Suddenly David isn’t so keen to solve the dilemma after all. What if the detectives are charged as accessories?
Paul offers to pay twice the normal fee. David changes his mind, if only just a little. McCain suggests they meet at the radio station later that night. He leaves, and they are met by another interested party—Laura Boyd. She wants to hire them to find her husband’s killer. At last they have a paying client!
All of a sudden, David finds his interest in the case renewed—it’s a “goldmine!”
There is a knock on the door. “I bet that’s Arthur,” David predicts. “Probably wants to hire us to find out who
did kill him!”
But it’s Sonny, the station manager. He wants them to prove Laura is innocent. He will go to the station with them.
David thinks Paul did it. Maddie thinks it was Laura. Addison also still believes Maddie is hung up on Paul. Now he has the additional support of the fact that McCain is
not six feet below ground. Once again, David comes close to broadcasting his jealousy. “
I’m impartial?” he asks.
They get to the station. Laura and Paul are already there. Maddie and David fight over who has to tell their theory first. ;D They look for all the world like a couple of a far more intimate type.
Paul: Would you like us to leave the room for a minute? ;D
They make their accusations, which are vigorously denied, but the big mess is interrupted by a new guest. It’s Sonny, and he’s packing heat. We have a winner!
There is a mad scramble. The detectives hide under a table. They prepare an attack. Maddie bites Sonny on the leg. David goes for the gun. The battle rolls out into the hall. David calls for Maddie to bite Sonny’s other leg. She sinks her incisors into somebody, all right, but it’s not Mr. Preston. Oops!
They duck into a room down the hall as Sonny keeps firing. David bets the man will run out of ammunition. “Six bullets!” he counts, and steps outside.
Boom. Uh-oh, seems Preston reloaded. David jumps back to safety. “Man carries extra bullets. I hate that!”
They chase Sonny onto the roof, where he really does run out of bullets. David corners him on the radio station’s sign. Sonny swings a pipe at him. Preston misses David and connects with the electrical line. Energy bursts down the conductive metal and fries the attacker. Preston falls dead.
Once again, all is right with the world.
The gumshoes wind up back at Blue Moon. “Poor Laura Boyd,” Maddie says, “I wonder what it’s like being a woman men die for.”
“Ah, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” David clarifies. “Dates keep getting sick, kicking off, not showing up.” Do they. Indeed. This time he tries the direct approach. “Want to do something tonight? Get something to eat or something, maybe?”
“Addison, we’ve been over this before,” Maddie lets him down gently. “You know I have to be at home, in bed, alone, by 9:30.”
“Come on, it’s not a school night!” he insists. “There’s all kinds of great things going on out there. Can’t you hear them?...”
;D