Jessica finds herself tangled up in a complicated situation when she visits her former English teacher, Carrie McKittrick. Carrie's stepson and grandson are livid that she's changed her will to leave her fortune to Reverend Willie John Fargo, a televangelist and host of "The Electric Cathedral."
Carrie is soon hospitalized after a dispute with her family, and dies the following evening in her room. Jessica suspects foul play and has no shortage of suspects to choose from, including Carrie's greedy relatives and Willie John Fargo's entourage.
This episode provides examples of:
- Cool Teacher: Carrie was Jessica's, and is the reason Jessica became a teacher and a writer herself.
- Domestic Abuse: Carrie's step-grandson is physically abusive towards his wife. When Jessica meets her, she quickly recognizes the woman's wearing dark sunglasses at night to hide a black eye.
- Frame-Up: Ruth killed Carrie and made it look both like an obvious murder and that her husband was responsible.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: Ruth has grown to hate her husband because of the lifestyle they live, being expected to be a pious preacher's wife while ignoring her own wants, desires, and sexual needs. She couldn't divorce him because the scandal would ruin her, and if she killed him he'd be a martyr and she'd be trapped in his image for the rest of her life. She wanted to destroy him so she could be free.
- Innocently Insensitive: Willie John legitimately didn't realize how unhappy Ruth was. When he asks why she never told him, Ruth claims she did in a lot of ways he failed to recognize.
- Jerkass: Carrie's stepson Harvey and his son Sam are absolutely horrible and rude to just about everyone around them. They're desperate to get Carrie's money, despite that Harvey's got his own fortune, and don't hold back from calling her a crazy old woman. Their awfulness even caused Carrie to be hospitalized. Sam's not only beating his wife, he went as far as to forge a will by making Carrie sign it. After she died.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The McKittricks lean on the DA to make sure they don't end up accused of the murder—after all, that's why they had him elected.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Willie John Fargo comes across as a bit conceited and bombastic, but he genuinely is a devoted preacher who cares about the message he spreads and only hoped to gain Carrie's money to fund the Electric Cathedral. Having realized he failed Ruth by getting too obsessed with reaching bigger avenues to spread God's word, he decides to step out of the spotlight and go back to helping people on a smaller level.
- Token Good Teammate: Alice, Carrie's abused granddaughter-in-law, is the only one to have any genuine fondness for her. Carrie herself is aware that Alice isn't after the inheritance like Sam and Harvey.
- Took a Third Option:
- Ruth's reason for killing Carrie and framing her husband. A divorce would turn her into a pariah. Killing him would leave her trapped carrying his legacy as a martyr. Framing him for murder would destroy him and get him sent to prison so she'd be free.
- Willie John doesn't keep Carrie's money after all, but he doesn't give it to Sam and Harvey. He instead uses it to set up a foundation in Carrie's memory and gives the McKittricks control, leaving them with Carrie's money like they wanted but unable to use it for themselves.
