Recap / Columbo S 08 E 03

Episode: Season 8, Episode 3
Title:"Sex and the Married Detective"
Directed by: James Frawley
Written by: Jerry Ludwig
Air Date: February 27, 1989
Previous: Murder, Smoke and Shadows
Next: Grand Deceptions
Guest Starring: Lindsay Crouse, Stephen Macht

Sex and the Married Detective is the third episode of the eighth season of Columbo.

Dr. Joan Allenby (Lindsay Crouse) is a well-known, nationally prominent sex therapist, author of best-selling books and host of a radio call-in show as well as the director of an institute on sexual research. Her lover, partner and business manager is David Kincaid (Stephen Macht). One evening, Joan is scheduled to head to Chicago for a radio convention. However, her flight is delayed due to fog. Rather than wait in the airport, she decides to go back to her clinic, having realized she forgot some papers. While there, she discovers David in the institute's bed room (basically a sex room for clients of the institute), having sex with Cindy Galt, Joan's hot secretary.

Enraged, Joan decides to murder David. Upon her return from Chicago, she whips up a scheme in which she tricks David into taking her to the sex room, disguising herself as a fancy hooker and pretending that it's kinky roleplay (to deflect suspicion from herself and also allow her to avoid being identified by the night security guard). Instead of kinky sex, she shoots him and then stages a scene meant to look like a call girl rendezvous gone wrong. Unfortunately for her the case falls to Lt. Columbo, who notices the usual odd details, like why David didn't have his keys on him...

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Tropes:

• Becoming the Mask: Joan, who for all her talk about sex dresses in a rather staid manner, tarts herself up as a High-Class Call Girl with a slinky black outfit, stockings, and black hat. Later she gets way too much into the Lisa persona, putting on the outfit again after the murder, talking to herself in the mirror as Lisa, going out to clubs. At the end she admits to Columbo that while committing murder never frightened her, she did get frightened by how much she enjoyed the Lisa role.
• Chalk Outline: A tape outline of where David's body fell on the plush carpet of the sex room.
• Chekhov's Gun: Columbo notices the tag on Joan's new coat as they're riding up the elevator the morning after the murder. The tag eventually allows him to track down the store in Chicago where Joan bought the accessories for the "Lisa" disguise.
• A Deadly Affair: Joan murders her lover David for sleeping with her assistant Cindy behind her back.
• Dramatic Thunder: Some mood-setting thunder claps during the climactic scene at the institute as Columbo lays out the solution to Joan.
• Enemy Without: Subverted. Joan sees "Lisa" in the lobby of the institute during the summation, but says nothing to Columbo about it. Turns out Columbo had a policewoman wear a costume identical to Lisa to see if Joan would react.
• Everybody Has Standards: Lenz may have stalker-like levels of affection towards Joan herself, but as he tells Columbo, the reason he couldn't stomach David was because he treated sex like a cheap thrill for his affair with Cindy, rather than something that should've been personal and meaningful between him and Joan.
• Going by the Matchbook: Joan attempts to invoke this, planting a matchbook from the club where David met "Lisa" the hooker. This backfires when Columbo learns that "Lisa" the high-class hooker was spotted at the symphony.
• Hapless Self-Help: The murderer is a sex therapist with multiple books about improving your sex life. Despite this, her friend and lover is cheating with her Sexy Secretary and she conspires to murder him while dressed up as an escort herself.
• High-Class Call Girl: Joan dresses up as one, a call girl named "Lisa", and actually makes David give her money at the club. He thinks it's role play but it's really to pin his murder on an imaginary prostitute.
• Home-Early Surprise: A delayed flight to Chicago allows Joan to come back to the institute, and find her lover in bed with his girlfriend.
• Hotter and Sexier: Toplessness from the Back and Underboob from Cindy during the sex scene (there weren't many sex scenes at all in previous episodes of Columbo), Joan's hooker costume with the Navel-Deep Neckline, all the sex talk—this episode is much sexier than any prior edition.
• Ironic Echo: Before she pulls the trigger on David, Joan asks him "If I were a dessert, what kind of dessert would I be?", calling back to his earlier pillow talk with Cindy where he compared the former to rice pudding while comparing the latter to a Bavarian Chocolate Cream Pie, letting David understand just why she's about to put him down.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: Simon, a researcher at the institute, dislikes Joan's radio call-in show. After he calls it "cheap, shoddy commercialization," David says "Actually, Simon, there's nothing cheap about it."
• Kick the Dog: An indirect variety. While with his lover, David compares Cindy to a Bavarian Chocolate Cream Pie. And his actual girlfriend Joan? A rice pudding. Granted, he didn't know Joan was actually listening in on him at the time, but it doesn't make it any less back-biting or hurtful that he thinks so little of her.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: "Lisa" wears a jacket with cleavage down to her navel as part of her hooker outfit.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Joan Allenby is an obvious takeoff on Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Real Life sex therapist and media personality. (Although she's a lot taller and younger and doesn't have a German accent. That, and she probably hasn't murdered anybody.)
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Averted. Joan extensively dresses up and disguises herself as "Lisa", but David recognizes her pretty much instantly, even from a distance.
• Predatory Prostitute: Feigned. Joan dresses as her alter ego, sex worker "Lisa", to kill David. "Lisa" also works on most men.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: When they're having sex, Cindy asks "If I were a dessert, what kind of dessert would I be?" David describes a fancy ornate chocolate dessert. Cindy asks the same question about Joan and David says "Rice pudding." Later, when Joan pulls the gun on David, she says "If I were a dessert, what kind of dessert would I be?", right before she shoots him.
• Sexier Alter Ego: "Lisa" is Joan Allenby's murder disguise but there's even more to it: she designs "Lisa" with thoughts in mind what men would see as an ideal woman and gets more and more drawn into the role once she wears it; she's seemingly turned on and disgusted at the same time when she sees how well "Lisa" works.
• Sexy Secretary: Cindy, Joan's hot young secretary. Joan discovers that Cindy and David are having an affair.
• Shout-Out: A nebbishy researcher at the sex institute with an interest in Joan is named "Walter Neff".
• Stocking Filler: A close-up shot of Joan hooking stockings to a garter belt as she changes into "Lisa" the fancy hooker.
• Toplessness from the Back: Cindy during her sex scene with David, as Joan silently weeps behind the blinds.
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: Joan and Columbo first meet in the elevator on the way up to the institute. He sees the store tag still hanging from her stylish coat, and she is irritated by him lighting up a cigar in a non-smoking elevator. The ride passes in awkward silence. (The tag eventually becomes a vital clue.)
• Verbal Irony:
  • Joan says to David, "Boy, have I got plans for you." He thinks she's talking about weird sex when she's really talking about murder.
  • Joan's friend at the symphony asks what she thought of the concert, and Joan says "I think everything came off perfectly." She's really thinking about how she ducked out of the show, went off and murdered David, and made it back.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: A rather humble one. Towards the end, after he's proven that she's "Lisa" and by that logic David's murderer, Joan soberly confesses her motive, and how the entire experience has lead to a startling path of self-discovery. She wonders to Columbo if her insecurity makes her lesser for it. Columbo admits he's more qualified as a detective than a therapist. But this much he can say: he enjoyed conversing with Joan. This is a rather sweet way of letting Joan know she's more valuable than David gave credit.