Chief Parker: Hello, <Player's Name>. As the police Chief, it's my pleasure to welcome you to Grimsborough! I know you've worked here a few years ago, and I heard you did great, so I won't waste time explaining the job of a homicide detective to you!
The player returns to Grimsborough after five years and, to the joy of their old team, once again joins its police department. Jones, now a Senior Detective, is ready to take you out to the zoo to visit the PD's former coroner Nathan Pandit, who has become a veterinarian there since the player left. Unfortunately, this touching reunion becomes your very first murder investigation when you find Nathan's body tied up and dead from several snake bites.
Tropes
- Amicable Exes:
- Gloria and her ex-husband Jake appear to be in such good terms he has no problem with Gloria moving to Grimsborough to be closer to their son.
- Averted with Nathan and Harper, who ended in pretty sour terms after Nathan kept trying to salvage their relationship against Harper's wishes.
- Animal Assassin: The killer goaded an Eastern coral snake into biting Nathan multiple times.
- Animal Lover: Apart from Nathan and Harper, this case introduces Vince Moon, a zookeeper who claims to be capable of talking with animals and hated Nathan for putting down sick animals despite that being his job.
- Babies Ever After: Cathy and Alex got married while the player was away, and they've already had a baby named Sammy.
- Back for the Dead: This case’s victim is none other than Nathan Pandit, your previous colleague back in Season 1.Jones: I never expected our reunion with Nathan to end up with us investigating his murder! We owe it to him to see this through!
- Bound and Gagged: Nathan was bound with ropes by his killer to prevent him from escaping in case he woke up during the murder.
- The Bus Came Back: David Jones, Cathy Turner, Eduardo Ramirez, and Harper Stone all return from Season 1 in this case, the former three as members of your team and the latter as a suspect.
- Came from the Sky: During the Additional Investigation, you learn a satellite fell from the sky a year ago in the forests of Grimsborough. According to Jones, most people have already forgotten about it by now.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Vince Moon, a zookeeper who believe he can talk to animals and heal them with his "special powers," appears as a suspect.
- Clueless Mystery: Once again like "The Death of Rosa Wolf" and all the other mobile exclusive tutorial cases before it, while the game gives you the physical evidence to find the killer in "The Dead and the Beautiful", the game never explains why Brandon Cummings killed Jennifer Tanaka in the first place.
- Continuity Nod:
- When you meet up with Ramirez for the first time, Jones mentions how he was working as a private investigator back in Pacific Bay before returning to Grimsborough.
- Louis Leroux, the reporter you see in the DVD, works for CCN, the same news outlets Rachel Priest worked for.
- Cool Teacher: Despite her harsh demeanor towards Nathan. Pippa Goldfinch seems to be a genuinely kind teacher who looks after her students, even getting worried sick about the fact Nathan let them touch snakes during their zoo visit.
- The Coroner: Kit Partridge, an old classmate of Nathan, used to be a coroner before he retired and became a zoo regular just like him.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jackson Peacock, the owner of the zoo and self-proclaimed wealthiest entrepreneur of Fairview, is revealed to be corrupt when you discover he's been trafficking baby pandas to make a cash.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: According to Martine, the poison from the Eastern coral snake would've caused Nathan to experience slurred speech, double vision and muscular paralysis, followed by a fatal heart attack. Jones is understandably horrified.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Vince Moon, who claims to speak with animals, turns out to be right when he tells you his lemur told him he saw Jackson Peacock throwing Nathan's phone in the trash, putting at question whether his supposed abilities are real or not.
- Cuteness Proximity: Jones and the baby panda Jackson is seen carrying before you arrest him.Jones: And we'll fine him on behalf of the Grimsborough Animal Protection Services too, won't we, cute little panda?
- Dead Guy Junior: Sammy, Cathy and Alex's son, is named after Samuel King, Cathy's late grandfather.
- Debut Queue: In the mobile-exclusive "The Dead and the Beautiful" tutorial, only Chief Parker, Jones, and Martine are introduced, with the rest of the team properly appearing in the case itself.
- Dirty Cop: Defied by Nathan, who was murdered because he wouldn't falsify information to let Kit's son evade jail for drug possession.
- Downer Beginning: The first case of the season, and Jones and the player are already investigating the murder of their old friend, Nathan.
- Early-Bird Cameo:
- Louis Leroux is seen talking in a DVD before he's properly introduced in Case 8. He also mentions Dr. Greg Gibbs before he appears in the next case.
- Judge Powell mentions her daughter before she appears in Case 22.
- Gloria talks about her son Carter and her ex-husband Jake Hayes before they properly appear in Case 5 and Case 41, respectively.
- Firing Day: Pippa Goldfinch, a teacher at the local high school, wanted Nathan to get fired because he allowed her students to touch snakes during their zoo visit.
- Foreshadowing:
- Coupled with Freeze-Frame Bonus, take a closer look of the footage of the satellite falling from the sky into the forest. Notice its rock-like appearance?
- During the Additional Investigation, you discover a shipment of amlodipine, an experimental drug used to treat high blood pressure in humans and animals, has been stolen from the zoo, leading to a few questions that won't be answered until Case 3.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Brandon Cummings in the mobile exclusive tutorial wears glasses and murdered Jennifer Tanaka. For... reasons?
- Gratuitous French: Martine is introduced this way, as she's a model from France who has come to Grimsborough to work as a coroner.
- Hates Being Nicknamed: Gabriel expresses his dislike for being called Gabe when Jones does this.
- Hopeless with Tech: Jones messes up Nathan's phone so badly Cathy spends hour trying to unlock it.Cathy: <Player's Name>, please don't let Jones do anything silly like trying to unlock a phone again! It took me ages to reconfigure it!
- House Husband: Cathy informs you Alex has become this, staying in their house taking care of her son while she works as the tech expert of the department.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Apart from being lab partners and coworkers, Rupert (who is 61) and Amir (who is 25) seem to be in good terms and very friendly to each other.
- Kindly Vet: Nathan left his job as the coroner of the Police Department to become a veterinary at the zoo due to being an Animal Lover.
- Knowledge Broker: Ever since he returned from Pacific Bay, Ramirez has become the Grimsborough's police department official consultant, providing them with information and results of his private investigations despite not being part of the department anymore.
- Newspaper-Thin Disguise: Ramirez is introduced when he appears hiding behind a newspaper with holes for his eyes, prompting Jones to mistake him for a stranger and order him reveal himself.
- Noodle Incident: During the DVD recapping what happened in Grimsborough during the last year, Louis Leroux mentions the town suffered from a measles epidemic and a three-legged cat named Charlie saved a toddler from drowning.
- Not Good with Rejection: Surprisingly, Nathan didn't accept Harper breaking up with him very well, to the point he insisted to keep their relationship going by giving her unwanted presents.
- Not Proven: Nathan, Vince, and Harper were trying to prove Jackson Peacock was part of an animal trafficking operation, but couldn't find enough to put him under arrest. It's up to the player and Jones to find evidence of this during the Additional Investigation, which you accomplish.
- Offscreen Romance / Offscreen Breakup: Nathan and Harper began and ended their relationship while the player was out of Grimsborough for five years.
- Papa Wolf: Deconstructed. When Kit and Nathan worked on a drug bust ten years ago, Kit begged Nathan to doctor the evidence so his son Zachary (who was involved in it) wouldn’t go to prison, but he refused. This led to Kit murdering Nathan because he blamed him for his son’s incarceration.
- Precision Crash: Thankfully Averted with the falling satellite that crashed in Grimsborough a year ago, as its landing point was the city's forest.
- Private Detective: Ramirez is shown to now be working as this in addition to being a Knowledge Broker for the department.
- Pulled from Your Day Off: Jones and the player's visit to the zoo is put to a halt when you're thrown into your first murder investigation right inside of it.
- Pursue the Dream Job: Nathan quit being a coroner for the PD to become a zoo vet because of this.
- Revenge: Kit's ultimate reason for murdering Nathan is the fact he refused to falsify evidence to spare his son from jail, leading him to seek revenge.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the killer's traits is that they read The Jungle Book.
- Pippa Goldfinch is holding a book titled "Biology for Schmucks".
- During his second interrogation, Vince sings "I smell pretty, oh so pretty..."
- Louis Leroux is a parody of Louis Theroux, and he works for CCN, a parody of CNN.
- Skewed Priorities: When you inform Jackson Peacock of Nathan's murder, he seems more worried about how a murder inside the zoo will be bad for business and how finding a good vet is hard these days.
- Slashed Throat: Jennifer Tanaka, the victim of the mobile exclusive tutorial case "The Dead and the Beautiful", is killed this way.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Vice Moon claims to do so, and judging by his The Cuckoolander Was Right moment described above, he appears to be completely genuine.
- Tap on the Head: Nathan was first knocked out with a stick used to handle snakes before being murdered.
- Tempting Fate: When Jones offers take you to the zoo to see Nathan, he mentions how crazy it is he went from working with dead bodies to treating patients that can bite. Oh, he got bitten alright...
- Title Drop: Kit says one during his arrest and Motive Rant for killing Nathan.Kit: I stole into the terrarium, took the most poisonous snake I could find...
... And I used it to kill Nathan like the treacherous snake in the grass he was! - Visit by Divorced Dad: Gender-Inverted example with Gloria, who moved to Grimsborough to be closer to her son Carter as her ex-husband got full custody of him due to her dangerous work situation.
- We Used to Be Friends: Nathan and Kit were friends and coworkers before Nathan refused to falsify evidence to avoid Kit's son going to jail, which led to his murder.
- Welcome to the Big City: Inverted. Gloria, your second partner, hails from the big city of Chicago, and has just moved to the "small" town of Grimsborough.
- Wham Shot: The sight of Nathan's dead body (on your first case of the game, no less). Kinda tells you what tone this season will have compared to the first one...
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Jones is apparently terrified of snakes, which leads to him being frightened during certain parts of the case.Jones: The reptiles are staring at me, I know it! Let's see what you found and get out of this creepy place!
