Day 217: Columbo, Double Shock

Show: Columbo

Episode Particulars: S2EP8, “Double Shock”, original airdate March 25^th, 1973.

 Summary: The very active and wealthy Clifford Paris (Paul Stewart) is about to get married and go on a honeymoon with his much younger fiancée, Lisa Chambers (Julie Newmar). As he’s bathing after a round of fencing, his nephew enters the bathroom with an electric mixer, which he proceeds to throw into the tub, electrocuting his uncle. It all seems pretty straightforward, both to Columbo and the audience, but then things become way more complicated; we’d been following Dexter Paris (Martin Landau), but he has a twin brother, Norman (also Landau), and in addition to hating each other, they both have reasons to want their uncle dead. Which means Columbo’s workload has now doubled, and that pun was definitely intended.

Standalone Thoughts: I’ve mentioned before that it seems like Columbo’s modus operandi was to stick to the same formula, but find ways to experiment with it whenever they could. Well, they do that in a big way here; while we know what happened to Clifford, the minute we find out that Dexter and Norman are twin brothers (and I appreciate that the writers don’t save that for a third act twist), we now have to figure out which one of them did it. In that respect, it’s a bit more like a typical mystery. Leave it to the Columbo team to take the conventional plot and make it unconventional.

The farther I got into the episode, the more I liked it. It’s just chock full of all these moments and details that are well-handled. In fact, there’s so much that it’s hard to believe the episode’s only about an hour and fifteen minutes, but it all mostly works together. Granted, a lot of those details are more about character beats than actually solving the crime, but those beats are strong enough that I’m willing to forgive that.

What sort of things am I talking about? Well, let’s see. It takes a while to realize it, but Martin Landau does give the brothers different ways of speaking and acting, and once you see it, you can appreciate how good he is at it. The fact that Columbo winds up thoroughly irritating the housekeeper Mrs. Peck (Jeanette Nolan) seems like something that’s long overdue, given his mannerisms, and thus assures us once and for all that Columbo’s not perfect and not everyone is content to quietly tolerate him. We get another quickly fleshed out and well-acted character in the form of Lisa Chambers, joining the ranks of Dr. Hideman and Tomlin Dudek. But it’s Columbo/Peter Falk who really shines today, for a variety of reasons. He seems genuinely groggy and out of it when he first appears (I’m guessing he was woken up to come out to the crime scene), and it feels a little more realistic then when he was tired back in “A Stitch in Crime). However, the moment he notices something amiss, not only does he immediately snap to attention, but he ties up his tie, which is a nice little hint that he’s ready to get down to business. Later on, he goes over to Chambers’ apartment to talk to her, right when she’s in the middle of yoga, and when she apologizes, he smiles and says “I enjoy watching”. Even though he probably is admiring her body, he doesn’t make it seem lewd, but kind of affectionate, which is a very hard trick to pull off. My absolute favorite bit, however, is the scene in my header, when Dexter pulls Columbo from the studio audience to help him on his cooking show. The scene itself is blatant padding, but the actual content is delightful, because Falk and Landau play off each other incredibly well, and the whole thing is just a lot of fun. The episode would probably be worth watching for that scene alone.

I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say this is my favorite episode of Columbo so far, but it’s probably going to rank pretty high on my list when all is said and done. It’s creative, well-acted, and overall very strong. I don’t think you could ask for a better episode to end a season on.

Number of “Columbo-isms”: 3/6; the car, two mentions of his wife, and two variations of “Just one more thing”. I also want to note a subversion, though. Right when Columbo arrives at the crime scene, one of the officers asks if he has a handkerchief that they can give to Miss Chambers. Given how often Columbo is asking other people for writing implements or matches, having someone ask him for something is kind of uncharted territory.

Other: *This may be politically incorrect of me, but in Dexter’s early scenes, I kind of wondered if Landau was playing him as gay. He just seemed very flamboyant, so I thought maybe we were supposed to infer things. Later, though, Norman mentions that he chases after women (and I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but remember the 1973 perspective), so I guess he’s just got a very enthusiastic personality.

*I feel like Clifford should have been a little more suspicious of the fact that one of his nephews came into the bathroom with an electric mixer and proceeded to plug it in right next to the tub. Even if he likes and trusts them, I feel like he should have at least voiced his concern about having an electrical appliance so close to water. Or is this another one of those “being too savvy of the tropes” things?

*There’s a small fakeout where we expect Chambers to discover Clifford’s body fried in the bathtub, but it turns out the body was moved. I wasn’t expecting that, so I’ll give credit where credit is due for having a non-obvious fakeout.

*Dexter tries to hurry Columbo along by saying “I’ll be out of my teens by the time you’re finished”. Since he appears to be in his thirties, I have no earthly idea what that phrase is supposed to mean. Was that 70’s slang or something?

*The whole thing surrounding the impromptu trip to Las Vegas is fascinating from a time capsule perspective. First off, it seems impossible that Dexter and Columbo could just hop on a plane and get to Vegas on such short notice, even if they don’t bring any luggage with them. Secondly, the Vegas of 1973 is very different from the Vegas of today in more ways than one, so that can be interesting to see. I wonder what this scene would be like if the episode had been made today…

*I am a little surprised that Columbo goes along with Dexter’s pretending to be his brother to the cashier just so he can learn about Norman’s gambling debts. Then again, we’ve seen some of the tricks Columbo’s willing to pull to get his man, so I guess this isn’t entirely out of left field. Still seemed odd to me, though.

*Season wrap-up: Although the season started on a “meh” note and contained the weakest episode of the show so far, it also did a lot of playing around and trying new things, which kept things fresh and therefore, on the whole, is enough to make me say this is definitely a stronger season than the first one. Not that the first season was weak, but this season had a lot more that surprised me, and seemed to be a bit more unique. It appeals to the writer in me, and that’s more than sufficient to elevate it in my eyes. Though I suspect non-writers would feel the same way.

Would This Hold Up in Court?: Maybe. It’s a lot of conjecture and not a very strong case, but they do at least have a record of phone calls, so that’s something. I guess I’ll say this one depends entirely on both the lawyers and the jury.