A Friend in Deed

Season 3 came to an end with one of the strongest episodes of the series: A Friend in Deed. Michael McGuire plays Hugh Caldwell, a well-to-do fellow who accidentally kills his wife - the episode starts with him standing over her body. He goes to his friend, Police Commissioner Mark Halperin (played wonderfully by Richard Kiley) for help and Kiley sees the opportunity to get rid of his own wife in the process.

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What to watch for

A few things I thought were interesting in this episode...

Mark is a master thief?

Halperin breaks into the Caldwell house to dress Janice and set the scene for Hugh's alibi, but it's never quite clear how he defeats the locks on the gate and the sliding glass door. It's a bit of Hollywood handwaving, he basically touches them with a screwdriver and the doors just open right up. 

Police HQ

Columbo probably spends more time at the office in this episode than in all the other episodes combined. He's in and out of police HQ to talk to Halperin and Lt. Duffy multiple times. Ironically he's never in his own office, though.

A rare twist

Columbo usually has a pretty good handle on the case from early in the episode. In this one he got a surprise when Caldwell knew about the nightgown under the pillow. You can actually see Columbo's surprised reaction when Caldwell tells him about it; and the handshake when he departs that conversation seems like an acknowledgement and almost silent apology.

Of course, later he learns he was half right - Hugh did kill Janice, he just had an accomplish Columbo didn't initially anticipate.

Arlene Martel shows her range

Arlene Martel has a brief, but charming, appearance as the lovely soft spoken sales clerk at the jewelry store when Columbo goes to ask about Janice Caldwell's jewlery. We saw her previously as ditzy blond Gloria in The Greenhouse Jungle.

Val Avery at his best

Columbo occasional Val Avery makes perhaps his biggest and best performance of the series as the burglar Artie Jessup. We previously saw him as the PI Ralph Dobbs in The Most Crucial Game, and as the boat rental owner in Dead Weight. In season 5 we'll see him as a bartender in Identity Crisis.

The Duke

Duke Fishman has a small part as the little bald undercover cop who leaps into action to arrest Artie during the setup in the bar with Hugh. Duke was the official greeter for the city of Avalon on Catalina for about 40 years and is rumored to have been the inspiration for the Mr. Clean mascot.

Lally beind the bar

As long as we're at the Lariat (the bar where Artie hangs out) check out who is serving the drinks...

Yep, it's the legendary Michael William Lally.

Eleanor at the bar...at least once

She hates that place...but there she is with Artie asking about the roller derby tickets. Yes, it's Eleanor Zee...as Theresa Artie's girlfriend. She kind of dominates that scene and was exactly the kind of personality the episode needed for Artie's girlfriend.

The eye in the sky

Little, but common, continuity issue with the helicopter scene. If you watch you'll notice that the police helicopter that Halperin is riding in changes back and forth from a Jet Ranger to a Bell.

(For a great collection of Columbo screenshots go check out Vagebond's Columbo Screenshots)

No, it's NOT his apartment

A very common misunderstanding is the gotcha scene at the end. Columbo rents an empty apartment and puts some stuff in it to make it look occupied. Then he tricks Commissioner Halperin into thinking it's Artie Jessup's apartment so the Commissioner will plant some incriminating evidence there.

In the crucial moment he reveals that "He (Jessup) doesn't live here. I live here." The trap is sprung and the Commissioner is nailed. However a lot of folks think that Columbo ACTUALLY lives in that apartment and that the obvious shabby batchelor pad means that Mrs. Columbo doesn't exist (or they've split up). 

The apartment was always just a ruse. Columbo doesn't really live there and Mrs. Columbo is alive and well (well, as alive and well as any TV character is).

Just a few more things

• Rosemary Murphy plays Margaret Halperin, the doomed wife of the commissioner. She was born January 13th, 1925 in Germany.
• Columbo fans might recognize Joshua Bryant, the coroner Dr. MacMurray. He also played the shipyard foreman in Last Salute to the Commodore.
• When Halperin recruits Hugh to go throw Margaret's body in the pool he describes it as a "Quid Quo Pro." That's a bit of a malapropism - the actual latin phrase is "Quid Pro Quo" which means "something for something" and refers to the other side of the deal. In the simplest terms when you buy something you give the seller money and they give you the item you bought - that item is the "quid pro quo". In this episode it's the favor Hugh has to do for Mark to reciprocate for Mark covering up Janice's murder.