Columbo Goes to College

On December 9th, 1990, Lieutenant Columbo sharpened his pencils, walked into a college criminology class, and proceeded to teach two overconfident rich kids a lesson they really should have seen coming: never laugh at the man in the raincoat.

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Columbo Goes to College is one of the bright spots of the ABC revival era. In fact it's probably the best episode of the ABC era. It has the old formula, a modern gimmick, a pair of exceedingly arrogant killers, and—just to make longtime fans sit up a little straighter—the return of Robert Culp.

Fun fact: The college exteriors were shot at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.

Class is in session

The setup is a good one. Professor D.E. Rusk has discovered that two of his students, Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman, have stolen an exam. For ordinary students this would be humiliating. For Justin and Coop, it’s existential. Both of them are skating on thin ice – Justin with his demanding father who wants Harvard Law School or else. Cooper who has been put on notice by his dad that one more mistake and he’s out on the street.

That tells us almost everything we need to know about them. They are spoiled, entitled, and deeply allergic to consequences.

Meet Justin and Coop

Stephen Caffrey plays Justin Rowe as the brains of the operation, or at least the one who most enjoys believing he is the brains of the operation. He has that clean-cut, late-80s/early-90s golden-boy smugness that makes you want Columbo to arrest him before the murder even happens.

Gary Hershberger’s Cooper Redman is the more openly reckless of the two. Coop gives off the air of a man who has never heard the word “no” without immediately asking which family lawyer can fix it. He is less controlled than Justin, but just as convinced that ordinary rules are for ordinary people.

Together, they make a strong pair of villains because they understand the Columbo formula just enough to underestimate it. They know police procedure. They know how to plant clues. They know how to frame somebody else. What they do not know is that Columbo has spent two decades letting smarter people than them explain why he is too dumb to catch them.

The remote control car in the opening sequence was a subtle setup...it shows that the boys are gadget guys who are comfortable with remote control and video setups.

Poor Professor Rusk

James Sutorius doesn’t get a huge amount of screen time as Professor Rusk, but he makes the most of what he has. Rusk is not exactly cuddly, and the episode does not work overtime to make him beloved. He is stern, compromised, and tangled up in his own troubles. In fact, I’m fairly sure Sutorius doesn’t crack a smile even once during his brief appearance.

That is classic Columbo victim construction. The victim is often not a saint. Sometimes the victim is a bully, a blackmailer, a rival, a hypocrite, or simply someone who has backed the killer into a corner.

Maybe Rusk is just sour because he wasn't given a first name. Everybody just calls him "D.E.". Maybe he's just always longed for somebody to call him "Declan" or "David" or something.

Where's he going?

Justin and Coop are surprised that Rusk is turning left at the intersection - "He lives the other way" - but Rusk didn't have a choice...it's a one-way street.

The murder method

This is where the episode really earns its place in the revival era. The murder is both clever and completely ridiculous, which is a very Columbo combination.

Rusk is lured out of class while Columbo is in the lecture hall speaking to the students. Justin and Coop remain in the room, giving themselves the perfect public alibi. From there, the killing depends on a hidden camera, a miniature television, a gun rigged inside Coop’s truck, and a remote device that allows them to fire the fatal shot from a distance.

Is it plausible? Only in the same generous sense that Tommy Brown can parachute from a plane at night and land close enough to rejoin the crash scene, or that Dr. Kepple’s subliminal-film trick in Double Exposure works exactly as intended. The truck would have to be positioned perfectly. The camera angle would have to be just right. The gun mechanism would have to work flawlessly. The security guard would have to miss the thing he is there to watch and not remember to save all of the security tapes.

The level of precision needed to pull off that shot…it’s hard to believe a couple of college kids got that together in less than a week.

And yet, as a Columbo murder, it is hard not to admire the nerve. If they missed Professor Rusk would certainly be aware that somebody just took a shot at him and it wouldn’t take much to track the shot back to Coop’s truck.

The gimmick is memorable, visual, and very much of its time. It gives the episode a 1990 sheen without losing the old show’s basic pleasure: we know who did it, but we want to know how Columbo is going to prove it.

Also a realistically messy murder

Columbo murders are notoriously sanitary. Rarely do we see even a hint of blood. That's not the case here, when Rusk is shot we see blood spattered on his car, and when they find the body there's a pool of blood by his head.

That's more realistic than most Columbo murders, but also grittier.

Not as realistic...

It was weird that Justin drove the truck to go get help, and after he got up to the street he still had to run 50 yards to get to the building. But it was necessary. They needed to get the truck out of the garage before the police yellow-taped off the crime scene and the risk of the gun rig being discovered went way up.

This is the Columbo we love

Peter Falk is very good here, in part because the episode lets Columbo be Columbo without pushing him into clownishness. The boys see the cigar, the coat, the old car, the wandering questions, and the apologetic manner. They decide he is a relic.

That is exactly what Columbo wants them to decide.

There are few pleasures in the series better than watching a murderer mistake Columbo’s manners for stupidity. Justin and Coop do it constantly. They mock his gestures. They enjoy feeling superior to him. They practically volunteer to become junior detectives because they think they are steering the investigation.

The Lieutenant, of course, lets them. He always lets them. The more they help, the more they reveal.  By the time Columbo starts feeding them false information, they are so comfortable in the role of clever assistants that they do not recognize they are being played.

Robert Culp returns

And then there is Robert Culp.

Culp’s appearance as Jordan Rowe is not a full classic-villain return, but it is still a treat. After playing three murderers in the 1970s—Carl Brimmer in Death Lendsa Hand, Paul Hanlon in The Most Crucial Game, and Dr. Bart Kepple in DoubleExposure—Culp comes back here as Justin’s father, a high-powered attorney with a familiar contempt for the Lieutenant.

It is a smart bit of casting because Culp brings all that old Columbo baggage with him. Even if Jordan Rowe is not the killer, the audience instinctively recognizes the type: polished, privileged, impatient, and convinced that Columbo is beneath him.

His scenes also help explain Justin. The apple did not roll far from the expensive tree. Jordan’s contempt, control, and anger seem to have taught Justin that intelligence is a weapon and status is a shield. Unfortunately for Justin, neither one is bulletproof. They also set up the impossible expectations Justin has had to deal with his entire life.

A missed confrontation?

The only disappointment is that Jordan is not around for the final humiliation. Imagine Robert Culp watching Columbo dismantle his son’s perfect crime in real time. Imagine the glare. Imagine the slow realization. Imagine the old Culp fury directed not at Columbo, exactly, but at the intolerable fact that Columbo was right.

That feels like a scene the episode leaves on the table. Still, Culp’s presence gives the story a nice jolt of classic-era energy, and the episode is stronger for having him in it.

Joe Doyle, the unlucky patsy

Jim Antonio’s Joe Doyle is the kind of side character Columbo often uses well: not central enough to dominate the story, but memorable enough that the frame-up has some weight. Joe is a campus security guard, not a criminal mastermind, and the episode makes it very clear that Justin and Coop regard him as disposable.

His brother Dominic, played by William Lucking, becomes useful to the boys because he brings a whiff of underworld menace. The plan is not just to kill Rusk; it is to create a whole alternate story around Rusk’s research, mob threats, a gun, a car, and Doyle family trouble.

Again, the boys are good at assembling a plot. They just cannot stop admiring themselves for it.

About Dominic Doyle

I really liked the Dominic Doyle character, and William Lucking's portrayal. I thought he was a nice touch and he was good in nearly every scene he was in.

Columbo: "I'm Lieutenant Columbo, Homicide."

Dominic: "I haven't done one of them lately."

Dominic agreeing to help Columbo catch the boys reminded me of Artie Jessup from A Friend in Deed.

As long as we're talking about the supporting cast...

Hello again Alan Fudge

Few Columbo occasionals were as occasional, and spread across as many years, as Alan Fudge. He made his debut in season 3's Publish or Perish as Riley Greenleaf's attorney. We didn't see him again until season 8, when he played the CIA guy Mr. Harrow in Columbo Goes to the Guillotine. And now, at the opening of season 10, 15 years after his first appearance, he's back in a small role as Cooper's dad.

This appearance is brief. He shows up about 2-1/2 minutes into the episode, and he walks off screen less than 4 minutes in. We don't see him again.

Sachs is going to marry Sara

You can tell by the way they interact that they're best friends and there's maybe a little something more there.

Those two are going to end up with a house in Sherman Oaks and 3 kids.

...and speaking of Sara

The actress is Elizabeth Swackhammer.  Her dad is E.W. Swackhammer who was the director of this episode.

But she's not the only close relative who got a part in this episode. E.W. Swackhammer was married to Bridget Hanley, better known in this episode as...

...Mrs. Rusk.

She's apparently Elizabeth's stepmom.

The helpful killer problem

One of my favorite recurring Columbo tells is the murderer who cannot resist staying close to the investigation. Justin and Coop are almost comically guilty of this. They do not merely ask questions. They insert themselves into every turn of the case, offer theories, guide Columbo toward suspects, and seem personally invested in making sure he appreciates the story they have written for him.

Mrs. Columbo’s car

The final trap is one of the better gotchas of the later years, and it’s reminiscent of what Columbo did to Commissioner Halperin in A Friend in Deed.

Columbo gives Justin and Coop a description of the car supposedly belonging to Dominic Doyle. The boys, believing they are staying one step ahead, plant the murder weapon in that car. The catch, of course, is that the information was bait. The car is not Doyle’s.

It belongs to Mrs. Columbo.

That is a very satisfying reveal, partly because it weaponizes one of the show’s great running jokes. Mrs. Columbo is usually an offscreen presence, a conversational detour, a way for the Lieutenant to disarm people or make himself seem harmless. Here, she becomes part of the arrest. She still doesn’t appear, but her car helps close the case.

It is also beautifully simple. After all the cameras, monitors, remote triggers, ballistics, fake suspects, and planted clues, Columbo beats them with information control. He tells the lie to exactly two people. When the gun ends up in the car, there is no mystery left about who planted it.

The final grade

Justin and Coop do not collapse into remorse, which feels right. Their final attitude is not shame but wounded arrogance. They still think they are special. They still think Justin’s father can fix it. They still think losing to Columbo is a temporary inconvenience rather than the end of the game.

That makes the ending colder and funnier. Columbo is not just arresting two killers. He is handing them their first real consequence.

Just a few more things

• It is unusual and effective to have Columbo on screen before the victim dies.
  
  
• The song in the opening sequence is "Poor Rich Boy" by Ambrosia. It was originally written for the soundtrack of the Dudley Moore comedy, Arthur.
  
  
• In class Columbo refers to a case where he matched some chewing gum to bite marks on a piece of cheese. He's describing Agenda for Murder from the previous season.
  
  
• The lifted Toyota 4x4 is a very 90s vehicle. I was a young adult in L.A. in the the late 80s-early 90s and that’s exactly what all the suburban cool boys were driving. The air scoops on the hood seemed a bit much but necessary as a way to conceal and use the camera and gun.
  
  
• At one point Sachs asks Columbo about "the Devlin case" and there's a possibility he's hinting at The Conspirators with Joe Devlin...but as he continues it turns out that it was something to do with a race horse, and that's not at all The Conspirators.
  
  
• The episode understands one of the deepest pleasures of Columbo: the killer thinks the Lieutenant is behind the curve while Columbo steadily unwinds their scheme.
  
  
• Maybe this should be June Clark's license plate?