Mrs. Columbo: What Would She Be Like Really?

Repost from 2009: 

Since I posted about Columbo recently, here is a post about Mrs. Columbo. 

* * * 

In 1979, Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway for you Star Trek: Voyager fans) created the role of Mrs. Columbo on a show of the same name. The show lasted for two seasons.

Now, I admired Kate Mulgrew, and I think she makes a fine Captain Janeway, but as Mrs. Columbo . . . she just wasn't right.

Granted, Mrs. Columbo is something of a enigma. Columbo constantly makes references to his wife, but it is hard to know how many of his references are based on actual fact and how many are used to put his suspects at ease. Nevertheless, there are a few "real" encounters that give us an idea of Mrs. Columbo.

First, whenever Columbo calls, she is never home. Usually another member of the family answers the phone. Where is Mrs. Columbo? Out looking for flea market bargains or at a movie with one of her numerous family members. Apparently, Mrs. Columbo is a bit of a go-getter, an energetic ball of fire.

This impression is furthered when Mrs. Columbo and Columbo go on a cruise. She's always off to see a show or to see sites on the mainland. The cruise episode also gives us some insight into the marriage. When Columbo gets lost on the ship (lending support to the idea that Columbo is sometimes as scattered as he appears), he calls the room. "I don't know where the hell I am," he says bemusedly. His tone is neither that of the hen-pecked husband nor that of a blustering husband. It is the tone of one companion to another--Hey, you know what my weird life is like; help me out.

This easy-going tone gives credence to Columbo's claim that he discusses his cases with his wife, and she gives him insights and guidance. So Mrs. Columbo is not only a go-getter but a pretty sharp cookie.

Kate Mulgrew's Mrs. Columbo is a go-getter, but she's a Captain Janeway type of go-getter: very WASPy and goal-oriented. Columbo, on the other hand, creates a picture of his wife as less goal-oriented and more a thousand-irons-in-the-fire kind of woman. Less corporate, more bohemian. Less concentrated ambition, more holy-rolling "are we having fun yet" extrovert. She cooks, and she shops, and she makes pottery, and she likes movie stars and traveling and...

I personally picture her as a small (shorter than Columbo) Italian woman--kind of like Rhea Perlman.

I think Mrs. Columbo (1979) was a worthwhile concept, but it needed, well, Rhea Perlman to really pay it off. If it were to be done now, I would also tweak the concept a bit. Kate Mulgrew had Mrs. Columbo be a part-time working mother: a reporter with one daughter (the existence of other children is implied). Frankly, there have been enough shows about reporter-detectives and forensic-detectives and cop-detectives. It's time for the revival of Miss Marple--Italian mama style!

I would portray Mrs. Columbo as a tightly wound, very funny, little Italian housewife (which doesn't mean she's home all that much). She's always hauling her kids off places or running out to shop with her numerous siblings and every time she does, she encounters a crime! Mrs. King, only less spies and more murder.

It's time for the return of the domestic female detective!

Perpetual Bachelors: Trope and Stigma

Nero Wolfe is a perpetual bachelor. Perpetual bachelors are a longstanding tradition in literature, from PG Wodehouse's upper-middleclass men fleeing from marriage to Sherlock Holmes with his bromantic partner. 

Nero Wolfe falls in the subcategory of "perpetual bachelor who has been around the block." Tom Selleck's Frank Reagan also falls into this category. Although Frank is surrounded (quite literally) by family, he remains unattached. He had a marriage. He has kids. He doesn't want to go back or start over or move on to something else. He and Henry, his father and a similar type of perpetual bachelor, have an honest conversation with Danny about their disinterest in marrying again. Danny also lost his wife but he doesn't see his father or his grandfather as people to emulate--in their relationships, at least. 

Regarding Nero Wolfe, hints in the books and shows suggest that Wolfe had passionate causes and relationships in his past. He now wants a life of order and comfort. 

PG Wodehouse's bachelors are less excused. Although the stories applaud Wooster each time he escapes his aunts' marriage plans, Wooster himself is portrayed as a less self-aware Wimsey: a young man with no real objective in life, flying from responsibility. Jeeves is perfectly willing to assist since Jeeves prefers the good life of caring for a single unencumbered individual than for a household. 

The modern, American equivalent of Wooster is the-guy-in-the-basement-playing-video-games-and-still-living-with-his-parents.

So there is a stigma attached to bachelorhood. However, it has never been as great as the stigma attached to "spinsters." Consider Vance's cats. Even the footloose and fancy-free spinster bears a greater stigma than the male variety. So Michael Weatherly's Tony (NCIS) is a fun-loving womanizer who simply hasn't found the right girl yet while some of the characters from Sex & the City strike even me as kind of skanky and stupid. In fairness, Blanche from Golden Girls, though often called "skanky" by others, comes across as a pragmatic woman who enjoys life and doesn't see the need to apologize for her forms of entertainment. (In so many ways, Golden Girls was ahead of its time and today's time.) 

Still--the idea that men sow wild oats while women fail to fulfill social responsibilities lingers. 

Overall, stigmas exist regarding both male and female singles. And those stigmas can increase for men and for women depending on a culture. That is, some cultures will criticize the single male more while others will sneer more at the single female.

Personally, I'm a fan of pluralism. Not "diversity," in part because the term has bullying connotations these days that I don't agree with. I don't agree with people being applauded for their differences. I believe in people being left alone to enjoy their differences. I live in a neighborhood with single people and married people and living-together people and people-with-kids...we get up, we go to work, we go to play, we go shopping. That's life. 

So if people are happy in a basement, why shouldn't they hang out there? 

Wimsey and Harriet: It's About More than Brains

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane are often praised as a pair of intellectual equals. THAT is what makes them so romantic.

I think this description does Sayers a disservice. 

Her characters are more substantial than two people who can exchange ponderances on the news-of-the-world and-or literary analysis. As A.I. has proved, anybody can do those things (or, at least, look like they are doing those things). 

Peter does appreciate Harriet's writerly occupation. And her intelligence is a given. 

What attracts him to Harriet, however, is her fearlessness.

He attends Harriet's trial. In that trial, Harriet tells the absolute truth, even though it works against her and she clearly understands that it works against her. 

Harriet is suspected of murdering her pompous, condescending lover who died from arsenic poisoning. Harriet ended the relationship because he offered to marry her. She had agreed to live with him based on his avant-garde beliefs, including the belief that "marriage is just a piece of paper." In the early 1900s, this decision made her a social pariah in some circles. His sudden offer of marriage made her feel like she is being offered a "bad conduct prize," as if all along she was being tested to see if she was worthy of marriage (based on the lover's character, testing Harriet was exactly what he was doing). For her, the principle of a thing isn't an abstract notion but a reality of day-to-day life. 

She is, in sum, a kind of Nero Wolfe. An almost ruthless brain is at work behind her social poise. And Wimsey--who knows plenty of intellectual women and plenty of female artists (he has slept with a number)--is bowled over. Utterly smitten. 

In Busman's Honeymoon, Peter and Harriet have an exchange where Peter admits, "I can enjoy practically everything that comes along--while it's happening. Only I have to keep doing things, because, if I once stop, it all seems a lot of rot...Now, I don't know." He was always running to keep ahead of his fears and possible depression. 

Harriet, however, has always been more grounded: "I've always felt absolutely certain [that life] was good. I've hated almost everything that ever happened to me, but I knew all the time it was just things that were wrong, not everything. Even when I felt most awful, [I thought] of somehow getting out of the mess and starting again...Things have come straight."

That non-saccharine optimism is a quality that pulls Peter fiercely to Harriet. He would possibly get bored (as would she) if they weren't intellectual equals. But IQ is not the quality that makes the relationship. The ways Harriet and Peter separately tackle the universe are far more impactful.    

Love is not something that can be plotted on a chart.

A-Z Romances: Laurens and the Non-Idiosyncratic Mystery Couple

I decided to read a mystery by a romance author that I don't usually read. 

I read The Peculiar Case of Lord Finsbury's Diamonds by Stephanie Laurens. Laurens is a good writer but I'm not entirely drawn to her style. I did find the mystery interesting--although I thought a more plotted/Christie-type resolution would have supplied a stronger pay-off. 

However, I did not find the couples particularly interesting. A number of romances supply couples who are perfectly aligned, perfectly in love, perfectly happy. I suspect that such romances are echoing what many people find satisfying with Bones, Castle, and other great romance mysteries: a couple in sync. 

However, these romances miss that Bones specifically is so good because Brennan and Booth remain very much themselves. Bones, Brennan, is still quite literal, still competitive, still convinced of rather implausible life choices, such as becoming president. Booth still argues about finances and Brennan's work-oriented vacations. 

The series Castle comes to pieces at the end. However, Castle himself remains obsessed with toys. And Beckett continues to call him on his teasing, such as when she makes the entire family dress up for Thanksgiving. 

(Some) manga is also quite good at keeping the couple odd and off-kilter. Take Spy v. Family! Or Fake, in which the dreamy yet capable Ryo remains himself while brash and hot-tempered Dee remains himself.  

I love romances! What I don't enjoy is "passion claimed them and touch became their language, desire their beacon, and shared pleasure their mutual goal. Yet beneath the heat and the rising tide of yearning, their 'one thing' thudded like a heartbeat, steady and strong. A reassurance and a guarantee, a talisman of the future. An indisputable promise that their dreams could become and would become reality." 

Such passages leave me cold. Compare the above by Lauren to one of my favorite lines by a man to his lover:

"[The poems you wrote] are just like you. Incomprehensible and far too clever for their own good, and hiding all sorts of things, and--rather beautiful." (from K.J. Charles's Think of England)

I'd rather have the latter than the former.

A mystery helps. It doesn't entirely make up for what is lacking.

Great Laid Back Action Hero: Hugh Beringer

On Votaries, I have reached characters from "P" authors. Since Ellis Peters is one of those authors, I naturally started thinking about the Cadfael mysteries.

Hugh Beringar is a great character, and I realized, much to my delight, that he falls into the category of laid-back hero (see list below). He is the sheriff of Shrewsbury and the surrounding area for most of the Cadfael series. He is spry and lean with dark hair and eyes. He marries early on. Consequently, his life and family parallel Cadfael's--including their pleasure in meeting their sons (new born in Hugh's case; full-grown in Cadfael's case). He remains Cadfael's ally and friend through all the books. 

He is also quite laid-back. Cadfael does not know at first what to make of Hugh, who is observant, calm, and capable of playing a long game. Cadfael begins to trust him and is relieved to have that trust affirmed when Beringar is amused--rather than angry--at being out-maneuvered in One Corpse Too Many. 

In the first season of the series, Beringar is played by Sean Pertwee. The look is absolutely right. Pertwee plays Beringar's character as a tad more uptight--I suppose two entirely sanguine-y characters onscreen would be too much--but he captures the easy push and pull with Cadfael. And Pertwee has this marvelous low-pitched baritone which captures the character's contemplative side.

Other Laid-Back Heroes

• Lieutenant Pruden
  
• More about Loid
• Justin from Secret of Nimh
• Karasuma from Assassination Vacation (with a tribute to Arthur from Inception)
• Yuri from Yuri on Ice!
• Itami from Gate
• Sam Gillespie from Sister Boniface 
• Lieutenant Tao from The Closer and Major Crimes 
• Saitama from One Punch Man

 

Lathen Fan Fiction & Slice of Life Moments

Another of my fan fiction projects is related to Emma Lathen's Thatcher mysteries. In my fan fiction, Thatcher is a banker with a male lover who also works at the bank and helps him solve the various mysteries that show up in the books.  

In line with classics romance, I have my couple break up once. But generally speaking, the revolving door relationship bores me. So after the required single break up, I had to find other sources for relationship growth. I took the slice-of-life approach, what Bones actually did (despite the tiresome Pelant arc) with Brennan and Booth. Relationship events focus on Booth's charity, Brennan's birthday memories, whether or not Brennan should run for president, Booth's father's bones (a big topic but handled in a very family, everyday way). 

In connection with one of my favorite Lathen's, Sweet & Low, I have Thatcher and Damien deal with the issue of presents. If you ever want to get people heated up about a topic that you think no one could possibly get heated up about, try presents! There's the issue of presents not being what people really want; there's the issue of presents representing emotional needs; there's the issue of power (the burden of a too expensive present); there's the issue of timing (when to give a present). 

For Thatcher and Damien the issue is the relationship's status. Thatcher is still accustoming himself (in the 1970s) to the idea that his and Damien's relationship is not some que-sera-sera arrangement that will fall apart at any second. Damien is still adjusting to finding a lover who wants the same type of monogamous-picket-fence-in-the-city relationship as he does. They aren't sure WHAT their gifts mean.

* * *

Thatcher: My relationship with Damien was under some strain. Damien moved in at the end of ’74. I didn’t spend that Christmas with him but rather with my family in the Hamptons. And then there was the issue of our gifts.

[Damien: Not so much an issue. It was more amusing than anything.]

Damien got me tickets to the Statue of Liberty. I got my subway-train-bus-rider lover a $6,000 car. Damien was less than enthused. And uncomfortable. When I suggested we use the tickets a few months later, he tried to shrug them off. I insisted. We New Yorkers have a tendency to avoid our own icons. It was an enjoyable outing.

On the way back on the ferry, I said, “The car was a mistake, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Damien said. “Sorry.”

He didn’t need to apologize. Damien is adept at gift-giving. I couldn’t match him. Remember, Miss Corsa often arranged for the gifts I purchased.

Damien assured me that he also enjoyed our day together.

I said, with only partial self-mockery. “That’s the kind of thing a young man says when he takes an older man on an outing.”

And then my impish lover said airily, “A car is the kind of thing an old man gives to pacify a young lover.”

I had to agree, but I felt it necessary to point out that I didn’t think of Damien as a “boy.” Or gigolo. Whatever the current term was.

I sold the car and bought Damien a first-edition Sherlock Holmes. [A Harper’s American first edition of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes currently sells for approximately $2,500; in 1976, Thatcher got one for about $50-$200.]

[Damien: That’s about the time we started reading Ellery Queen together.]

Yes. Things got better. 

The Pleasure of the Non-Canon Couples

In relation to my post on Votaries about Ichabod Crane, I attempted to come up with a romance novel where the central romance is described by someone on the side. 

I used this approach in my tribute to Northanger Abbey. Henry and Catherine's romance is told by a bemused god of love, Ven, the male version of Venus. I chose this approach in part because it is the approach used by Austen: an acerbic semi-omniscient narrator writes about the vagaries of love and Gothic literature. 

However, such an approach isn't that common. Austen's other novels invest far more in the limited perspectives of her main characters. 

But the idea got me thinking of the romances that people love despite those romances NOT being the primary focus of a book/ show. For instance, I far prefer Monica and Chandler to Ross & Rachel in Friends. I know fans of Luke and Grace from Joan of Arcadia. And I've always considered Ryan's marriage on Castle (to his real life wife, Juliana, character name Jenny) to be one of the sweetest on record. 

These romances, in my opinion, are often used to satisfy viewers who are getting restless about the main relationship never being consummated (storytelling-wise). 

But I also think that sometimes the freedom of these non-canon or non-required marriages allow the writers more scope and insight. The non-canon couples ARE more fun than the central couples.

For the sake of comparison, I tried to think of "side" couples from manga and realized...

They often end up with their own series!

Dysfunctional Relationships in Crime Shows: The Damage of Making Up Stories about Others

One of the most damaging ideas in life, I believe, is the belief that "things SHOULD go this way." These days, especially on social media, the "should" fallacy is often connected to made-up stories rather than day-to-day realities ("you MUST have done what I've imagined, so you should or should not do it again--people OUGHT to have the following attitude, so it will now occur").

I learned to be skeptical of these types of stories early in life. In my prepubescent years, I read a book in which a young boy spends all day staring into a fire and making up stories about all the wonderful things that other people will do for him. About the same time, I read C.S. Lewis's rather acerbic analysis that fantasy writers--who are accustomed to invented worlds--are better at recognizing the gap between fiction and reality than writers of contemporary fiction and "true life" school stories. The latter begin to imagine that all those things in the story ought to happen to them. 

I consequently developed a distaste for "should" commentary and advice, the type of stuff that happens on social media before social media every came into being.  

Of course, in our world, lots of people get paid to give lots of other people advice based on theoretical stories rather than research and facts. But the underlying negative fall-out should never be forgotten.

In a CSI episode "Feeling the Heat," parents kill a child. They are absolutely convinced that the baby is suffering from a genetic disorder. Since their previous child died from that disorder, they decide that they can't go through the same pain again. 

It turns out the child was suffering from ordinary grogginess due to sitting near chemicals. Not good. But not life threatening. 

The parents imposed a story onto what they saw. They didn't wait to collect real evidence. They didn't think critically about the situation. They ran with the theoretical story and imposed it on a living being.

At a less murderous level,  Kang in On and Off encourages his boyfriend to leave his job and become an actor. He doesn't want Ahn to leave his job. But he has created a story in his mind of what Ahn needs without actually talking to Ahn and letting Ahn share an important proposal with him. When Ahn's friends trap Kang on a boat and tell him off, he rethinks the story he has created entirely on his own. 

As I state on Votaries about Elementary, true empathy is objective, not emotional. It asks, "What do I not know? What questions do I need to ask?" rather than "What label do I have to hand to construct a story? How do I think other people should be behaving?"

The Fun and Fallible Female Love Interest

In Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain, Taran falls in love with the sharp-tempered, adorable, outspoken and somewhat out-of-her-depth (at least initially) heroine.

In general, manga and anime do this character type better than Hollywood. With Hollywood, the "I'm too independent for you" aspect begins to wear thin. Even Eilonwy, Taran's love interest, grates some. She is funny with a few great lines. But she always seems to be right, even when she truly shouldn't be (gatecrashing a military action), and she is regularly dismissive of Taran, even if she does it defensively. (I don't remember my reaction to the character when I was younger; I was more enthralled by Taran and by Gwydion than by Eilonwy. I do remember that I liked her in the third book the best.)

In comparison, manga and anime present this same character as hapless AND effective at the same time. Check out Kasahara from Library Wars, who is somewhat spastic and committed to her career and brave and rather innocent.

And then there's Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle: tough and whimsical and unsure and efficient and passionate. Wry and adorable and real all at the same time. (And it occurs to me that Miyazaki would have done a beautiful job with Alexander's series. Perhaps his studio still could.)

Anne of Green Gables, of course, is the Western answer--in both the books and Sullivan's first series. And Anne is wonderful. But she is difficult to replicate. Off the top of my head, one exception I thought of is Amanda Bynes in the Shakespeare-inspired She's the Man. She is a decent comedian and willing to do physical comedy where she falls over her own feet. 

Another exception, surprisingly enough, is Ziva of NCIS who has a somewhat similar--if much more inherently violent--personality to the anime/manga female characters. She also has a notable internal arc.

That sense of whimsy makes all the difference. And a great actress. And having a storyteller--Bellisario--at the initial helm.

Lifestyles Matter in Love: Rear Window

The idea that love can overcome any barrier is nice in theory. In reality, it is less than practical.

That doesn't mean, love can't overcome differences in backgrounds, family, social standing, economic disparities, educational experience, and future goals. But if members of a couple think that declarations of affection are enough, they are kidding themselves. 

In Rear Window, Jeffries argues that (1) Lisa wants him to change (she implies he could change by becoming a society photographer, which, of course, he would loath); (2) Lisa isn't prepared for the life he leads. He is entirely correct, at least in that moment. The exchange also produces one of the best lines by Jeffries: "I'm just trying to make [my lifestyle] sound good." 

They come together over the case. Lisa is daring and clever. Moreover, the script implies a few times that she is not entirely enthralled by her shop-lunch-get-quotes-from-celebrities lifestyle. She may in fact be up for jaunts in the wild. 

Which doesn't mean Lisa has subordinated her personality. She still is greatly interested in fashion, which world can be cut-throat in its own way. 

The relationship could possibly work if both parties accepted that certain things they do are off-limits. So Jeffries visits warlords and takes pictures, then returns to Paris where Lisa is easily navigating political and personal minefields within the fashion world. He attends a show. And then they both go to, say, the 1956 Olympics or the first interfaith meeting in Morocco or a session of the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

In other words, I don't think Lisa should be hanging out around the Suez Crisis with Jeffries. It has nothing to do with competence or well-meaningness. It has everything to do with experience. And I rather suspect that Jeffries' sardonic comments may not go over terribly well with Balenciaga (though fashion designers are fairly tough), especially since it is doubtful that he would have any  idea what he was talking about. 

They could be a working couple, who each respect the work the other does partly alone.

Bromances: Joe Penny

Joe Penny is quite good at bromance. In Jake and the Fatman, he is younger enough (by thirty-six years) than his co-star (William Conrad) for J.L. McCabe to refer to Jake at one point as a son. However, the show presents them more as friends than a father and son.

In Riptide, Joe Penny and Perry King are peers who served together in the military, then started a detective agency run out of a boat.

In both cases, there is a strong domestic side to the relationship. McCabe drops in on Jake unexpectedly and expects him to make McCabe dinner. Cody and Nick live together on the boat.

In all cases, the young virile detectives pursue girls. But they always cycle back to their home base.

Since Joe Penny is a main character in both, I'll focus on him. And what makes him good at bromance is his unself-consciousness. He is quite tactile, not just with the other main characters but with minor characters, such as his nephew. That is, he isn't afraid to hug and kiss. He is physically at ease. This easiness goes a long way towards selling the bromance relationship.

I know that cultural assumptions are...assumptions. However, Penny's mother was Italian. There's a whole science of proximity (proxemics)--how close people are willing to get to each other, what feels natural versus what doesn't--which states that North Americans apparently prefer a distance of about 2-4 feet with strangers. For Italians, the distance is half. 

So perhaps, Penny grew up with less wariness about closeness.

Learning from Fan Fiction: Every World Needs Rules, even Heaven

My Emma Lathen fan fiction is based around Damien Smith (a new character) and John Thatcher (Lathen's detective). The fan fiction starts in heaven, where Damien's recent arrival requires that he and John give testimony about their relationship, namely why they should be together. 

Damien, John, and their advocate review each of the cases they worked together to explain how they came to fall in love and then live together, despite "lying" to a great many people (in the 1970s) about their relationship. (Neither of them cheated on anyone; Thatcher's wife died five years earlier.) 

That's Part I. 

Part II is Damien and John solving cases in heaven (or, rather, multiple heavens). The cases they solve have to do with people they met during the original cases. 

The premise here is based on my belief that death doesn't actually solve anything (which is one reason killing off a character is a writing cop-out). I get exceedingly tired of the idea that dead people get all noble and sweet-tempered the moment they die. 

Thatcher is younger in heaven.

The aura is the same.

I also don't buy into the idea that once a case is solved on Earth, the dead would be satisfied and whisk themselves off to strum harps on clouds. Why wouldn't they take revenge in heaven on people who forced them to "shuffle off the mortal coil" too early? ("I had so many plans! You ruined everything!")

But that position immediately raises the issue: Would heaven let that happen?

I realized that I needed to make up rules in order for Part II to work. 

The Rules

1. New arrivals end up in the heaven/town/region that fits their moral code. They can change heavens. But no matter what heaven they want to settle in, they must go through a "confession" for that heaven (become citizens).

2. The "confession" is not about admitting sin but rather about giving the council (of angels) and the human individual a chance to assess, "Am I in the right place?" 

3. If the confession remains incomplete, the new arrival is at the mercy of other members of that heaven/town/region. The angels cannot protect them.

4. Angels also have agency. Some of them believe in the Mike-Baxter-do-it-yourself-and-learn-the-hard-way approach to moral self-understanding. Some believe more in the social-work model. Some demand that humans earn money to take trains between heavens. Some give out free passes. Some, like Castiel, may even focus entirely on one human or set of humans.

5. The cases that Thatcher and Damien handle in multiple heavens (as consulting detectives) mostly deal with people switching heavens for a variety of reasons. Because these non-citizens have not yet completed their "confessions," they are open to assault by thugs and others. They can't be killed. But they can be kidnapped, stalked, attacked, stolen from, locked up, accused falsely, and otherwise inconvenienced.   

Continuing Story

So Thatcher's now-dead wife, who married him until "death we do part" and always saw herself as somewhat above the whole soulmates' cliche, has discovered that (a) the angels don't care how advanced/down-to-earth she is in her thinking, in part because she no longer is on Earth; (2) soulmates have cache in the heaven she has selected. 

In other words, the reputation that she had on Earth as a smart, practical, "sure I'm faithful but he is only a man, and marriage is about compromise, ladies" wife of a powerful banker--a reputation that was honestly acquired--no longer carries the same weight. 

She consequently detests Damien and doesn't understand Thatcher's consistent low-key refusal to go "back" to what worked on Earth. 

So she hires thugs to take Damien into a different heaven before he finishes his confession. 

Damien was rather sick of the heaven he was in anyway. He wants to be with Thatcher. But he is far happier in the Victorian Steampunk with Modern Attitudes heaven that he has ended up in. (His boarding house is run by a woman who doesn't mind him having a boyfriend but does insist on "no shenanigans before marriage!").

Thatcher tracks him down. Damien finally agrees to complete his "confession," after which he and Thatcher move into the heaven Damien prefers (Thatcher has the easygoing moral code of a guy who can basically end up anywhere). Steampunk heaven is their home base though they are often asked by angels to investigate disappearances and problems elsewhere. 

* * *

Why Rules Matter

Both Part I and Part II are a fun way to explore the books and various characterizations. In Lathen's first Thatcher book, Banking on Death, the victim is a completely self-absorbed man who is always looking for an angle. He doesn't bother to revenge himself on anyone when he gets to heaven--nobody ever mattered to him that much. (In fact, in my fan fiction, he keeps ending up in heavens that petition to have him thrown out. Eventually, he goes to work for the Borgias and wheedles his way into the good graces of each relative in turn.) 

But the original book includes his bitter, shrewd, selfish and hysterical mistress, who loathes the man's estranged wife for no very good reason. 

That mistress WOULD try to take out her grief on someone in heaven, such as the estranged wife. Thatcher and Damien would have to figure out who is spreading false rumors about the estranged wife, then track down the culprit and get her removed to another heaven. 

But if everything was all sweetness & light--or if everything was "yeah, whatever, it's just anarchy with angels"--then, well, my detectives wouldn't have much to do. 

People have to be able to behave badly for my detectives to have something to investigate. And the problems have to be repairable for my detectives to have long-range goals.

Dysfunctional Relationships in Mysteries: Plan versus Reality

"Does anyone have a plan like ours?"

One of my favorite Diagnosis Murder episodes, "Till Death Do Us Part," starts with the murderers--a spoiled daughter and her clueless fiance--imagining the murder they have planned. They imagine themselves as slick operators who impress the wedding guests at their upcoming nuptials. They imagine the victim, the father, as a jerk. They imagine his wife, the woman they intend to frame, as snide. They imagine the murder going off without a hitch as the detectives find all the clues they planted.

The episode then switches to the actual day. The couple are vain, pompous, disorganized, and kind of stupid. The father is kindly. The stepmother smooths things over. The two murderers keep making mistakes. Items that were supposed to be in certain places get lost. The dog laps up part of the poison. The maid vacuums. And so on.

 

The murder still occurs, and Mark Sloan naturally finds out the truth. For the purposes of this blog, the great insight into the relationship is that the two bad guys are "made for each other." They have the same dysfunction, and their dysfunction is tied to their murderous impulse. 

 

Their dysfunction? They think they deserve more than they have earned or than makes any actual sense. The groom resents his father-in-law's rejection of his completely ridiculous business proposals. The bride asks her stepmother to fetch nail polish that is already sitting on her vanity. They don't see their own arrests coming because they believe so thoroughly in their self-made stories.

 

Very funny. Very chilling.

Ellis Peters' Romantic Couples

In Golden Age mysteries, it is customary to have a courting young couple--so much so in Ngaio Marsh's mysteries that her courting couples (with the exception of Peregrine and Emily) tend to blur together.

Agatha Christie was exceptional, in part because she had the capacity to imagine different types of relationships. Still, the custom is such a strong one that several mystery writers remark wryly on it.

 

The custom has continued into the present day. It is apparent in Ellis Peters' books. Nearly all of Ellis Peters' books have a courting couple, helped quite often by Cadfael. However, one major difference to other courting couples in mysteries is that the Peters couple is almost always directly connected to the problem: the young squire who wants to marry his lord's fiancée; the young woman who is courted by a possible sociopath; the young monk who realizes he doesn't really want to be a monk after all and stays in Wales.

 

The couples don't particularly stand out but they fulfill their purposes within the narrative arc. Excellent Mystery is an exception in that it directly tackles loyalty within a marriage. Hugh Beringer and his bride are also notable since for all her quiet supposed meekness, Aline is a dignified aristocrat who knows her rights. In fact, many of Peters' brides-to-be are more canny and tough-minded than their idealistic mates.

 

A non-consummated, non-young relationship is Cadfael & Sister Magdalen (formerly Avice of Thornbury) who meet in The Leper of Saint Giles. They both came to the religious life after a life in the world, and they tackled worldly pursuits with eyes wide open. They took on their religious avocations in much the same way. They are kindly, pragmatic, and natural leaders, though Cadfael sticks to a more independent style of leadership. 

 

The book and television series both do a good job implying a natural bond between the two.

 

Ellis Peters's "modern" mysteries (they take place from the 1950s to 1970s), give readers George and Bunty: the solid, mutually respectful relationship of two people with distinct personalities, interests, and experiences.

The Smiles Sell the Scene: Charlie Chaplin

Real Chaplin

Murdoch Mysteries showcases real people from history. Sometimes, as with William Shatner playing Mark Twain and Thomas Howes playing Churchill, they are part of the mystery. Sometimes, as with the Wright Brothers and Buster Keaton, they make cameo appearances.

One of the coolest lessons of this conceit is learning how many famous people from history have overlapped, worked together, worked at the same time and in the same field. I had no idea, for instance, that Charlie Chaplin was friends with Stan Laurel. But he was! 

Fictional Chaplin

The actor who plays Charlie Chaplin on Murdoch Mysteries captures how dapper and charismatic Charlie Chaplin was outside of his adopted persona. Matthew Finlan does a fantastic job conveying the charisma, sharpness, energy, and ambition that the real man surely had. 

And that smile!

Dysfunctional Relationships in Crime Shows: Insecurity in Jake and the Fatman

Jake and the Fatman is a very smart show in many ways. One of the smartest aspects is that the crime takes place as much in the criminal's head as in a particular time and place. 

That isn't to say that the show is psychological mystery. It is very much a whodunnit/howdunnit action show. But the motive can be what people imagine as much as what actually takes place. 

Dorothy Sayers understood the power of the imagined grievance when she addressed the impact of jealousy on a relationship. Agatha Christie also understood it, particularly the way an idea can become a story in the brain. With several would-be murderers, Poirot gently makes the point, "You imagined a murder--that doesn't mean you committed it."  

The entire world of love and abandonment that Elinor imagines in Sad Cypress (over a fiance who isn't worth so much emotional investment) is a poison that is eventually purged. She never goes as far as she thinks she might. (The Poirot version, though well-acted, misses the point--the scriptwriters insisted on making the affair a matter of actual sex rather than emphasizing that Elinor has invented a more passionate fiance than she has; her identity, her imagined future, is on the line, not an actual flesh-and-blood relationship.)

More destructively, the husband in "Magnolia Blossoms" has convinced himself that his wife MUST sleep with his business partner to get some papers back, and he sends her off to perform that task without warning her. She doesn't, in fact, have to sleep with the other man; she is able to get the papers by simply asking. But she leaves her husband when she realizes his assumptions and suspicions, how willing he was to trade her based on a story in his mind.

Several of the criminals in Jake and the Fatman act not based on good judgment or objectively collected information but on that type of invented story. They think that there were let down, abandoned by a lover when, in fact, they never were.

In the first season episode "Fatal Attraction," a wife and stepson kill off the husband/father. Jake then uses the young man's competitive nature to drive a wedge between him and the wife. When the young man apparently disappears, the wife is easily persuaded that he gave her up--which he never did.  

Likewise, a later villain believes that his girlfriend gave him up when Jake gets her a singing gig. But she never did. 

The police don't have to manipulate these villains. The singing gig, for instance, is completely legitimate. If the girlfriend had held on in the first place, rather than giving up and resorting to crime, she might have broken into the field.

For the boyfriend, the legitimate nature of the singing gig underscores his insecurity. He knows--as does the stepmother with the stepson--that the lover has a less criminal option. Maintaining a relationship through dodgy behavior brings the foundation into question. It backs the idea that humans are attuned to fairness versus unfairness at a basic, non-taught, "natural" level. Something has got to give.

Or, perhaps, the reaction hints at a fundamental belief (however avoided through sophisticated philosophizing) that what goes around, comes around. The villains' stories about others and themselves and the world have convinced them of a particular outcome, and that's the outcome that comes about. 

From a romance point of view, it underscores the inherent vulnerability of love. Love me? Really? For how long? 

Agatha Christie and Jealousy: "The Edge"

Despite my appreciation of Agatha Christie's Harley Quin, I can't say I enjoy all his stories--though Christie consider Harley Quin and Mr. Satterthwaite her favorite characters. Not all the stories are mysteries and many of them don't end with a HEA (Happily Ever After). Generally, I find a satisfactory HEA far more pleasurable than a sad ending--not only for the obvious reason but because I consider a satisfactory HEA difficult to write and therefore impressive to read. But I appreciate that Christie wanted to give all sides of the romance equation. 

Like Sayers, one part of love that Christie delineates quite well is jealousy. At least the first two stories in the Harley Quin collection revolve around jealousy--jealousy that could potentially ruin a new marriage and jealousy that does in fact destroy a relationship.

However, I consider the darkest Christie story that tackles jealousy to be "The Edge," a non-Harley Quin story in The Harlequin Tea Set. 

What is remarkable about the story is that Christie gives a fairly nuanced view of a character who is not evil and even, arguably, justified in her behaviors. But her knowledge of her rival's love affair morphs into self-righteousness. Her self-belief in her restraint gets threaded through by a nasty undercurrent of self-satisfaction. In the end, she drives her rival to kill herself and in the process, her own self-identity. She can no longer see herself as a long-suffering saint who is doing the best for everyone when she became the cruel harasser of a victim. 

Christie has not always been credited for the strength and depth of her characters. She should be. She uses a light touch to deliver small excellent portraits. And her understanding of human nature is clear and honest.

Another Great Laid-Back Hero: Lieutenant Tao

Like Justin, Saitama, and Karasuma, Lieutenant Tao, played by Michael Paul Chan, is another great affable, seemingly easygoing hero.

He belongs on the Major Crimes team in The Closer and Major Crimes, working first for Brenda Leigh Johnson and then for Sharon Raydor. He is the tech guy, so much so that at one point he complains about a grifter being called "tech-y" because it is offensive to true tech geeks. (He later changes his mind when the grifter turns out to have invented a legitimate app.)

He can also be, to borrow a phrase, "a total badass." 

 

And he gets his own Atticus Finch shooting-the-rabid-dog moment in Season 7 of The Closer. In the episode "Under Control," Tao's son is in the squad room since the episode's victim, a young boy, belonged to the summer camp where Tao's son, Kevin, works as a counselor. Kevin alerted his father to the problem of the missing youngster. The death came about due to the hatred between a man, his ex-wife, and her lover. During a confrontation between the husband and lover at the police station, Tao steps in and barks, "E-nough!"

He sees his son watching and tells him, "Go into the break room and watch some TV."

 

As Tao marches off with one of the combatants, his son gazes after him in awe. Turns out, his dad is not just a mild-mannered, overprotective Clark Kent who isn't letting him take his driver license exam, but a police officer with serious skills.

 

Yet Tao, like Atticus--and Dean Cain's Clark Kent--returns to his mild-mannered persona, which is one reason we love him. And he is willing to re-think his positions, as when he supports his son taking his driver license exam at the episode's end.

 

But the "badass" lurks...