Web Video / Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party

Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party, also known as Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Invite Only Casual Dinner Party / Gala For Friends Potluck is a 2016 comedy/thriller webseries produced by Shipwrecked Comedy as a sequel to Socially Awkward Poe, their previous work centering on the daily life of a comically moody, humorless and socially backwards Edgar Allan Poe. You can find the prequel, the prologues, and the web series itself on YouTube.

Edgar Allan Poe is still hopelessly infatuated with the gentle, lively Annabel Lee, and he yearns to impress her. Sadly, while she likes him in spite (or maybe because) of his peculiarities, she's already set her eyes on the infuriatingly boring example of human perfection that is her suitor, Eddie Dantes. Poe's co-dependent frenemy/life coach/troll-in-residence Lenore the Lady Ghost, armed with her superhuman ability to give zero fucks about everything, helps Poe concoct a scheme that will gain him Annabel's love.

Together, they will invite Poe's large circle of famous literary acquaintances in order to dazzle her with his connections and sophistication, thus making Eddie "look like a disfigured orphan who kills small animals for fun". To justify the party, Poe crafts a gothic murder mystery complete with roleplay, imaginary clues and lights that go off before each "victim" is murdered. That fateful evening, a colorful cast assembles: Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, Oscar Wilde, George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Fyodor Dostoevsky, H.G. Wells and Agatha Christie.

Everyone is almost-not-quite ready to have a good time when the light unexpectedly goes out. When it comes back, tragedy has struck… right in the soup!

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This work contains examples of the following tropes:

• Adaptational Villainy: Charlotte Brontë and Anne Brontë were not cold blooded murders in real life.
• The Alcoholic: Fyodor and Lenore have that in common. He's delighted!
  • Ernest Hemingway as well. In Chapter 8, he pulls a pint out of his jacket!
• Ambiguous Ending: Not counting the epilogue, the show ends on a parallel to The Tell-Tale Heart, with Poe hearing the beating of a heart under the floorboards. This implies that Poe buried Eddie's body there and that Poe will likely go mad and confess his guilt to the murder, but it is never confirmed.
• Anachronism Stew: For starters, some of the authors come from different time periods.
  • The biggest outlier is Hemingway — all the other writers are from the 19th century, while Hemingway was born in 1899 and his most famous writing was about World War I. (Agatha Christie is also from the 20th century, but she turns out to be a case of We Hardly Knew Ye.)
  • It's also notable that Jane Austen makes a surprise appearance only to be killed off by the Brontë sisters when in Real Life she died when Charlotte, the eldest Brontë, was one year old.
  • Ironically, the Brontë sisters' plot arc nails down the setting to a very specific year — the fact that Emily Brontë died last year and Anne Brontë is still alive means it must be the spring of 1849. Interestingly, this is the year Poe wrote the poem "Annabel Lee", his last completed poem before he went mad and died, perhaps hinting at her fate at the end of the show and his fate afterwards.
  • Obviously, many, many other things contradict this, such as Poe's house having a telephone (which means that even if he has "one of the first telephone numbers" it can't be any earlier than 1876).
  • If we're using the Brontës to try to impose a chronology on this show, it's worth noting that their brother Branwell died before Emily, making the scene where Charlotte and Anne kill Jane Austen to prevent her from revealing his philandering even more impossible than it was.
  • Early on, Charlotte claims to have taken a CPR course. CPR wasn't even invented until 1960.
  • Openly lampshaded when the constables arrive looking for Agatha Christie, referencing her disappearance in 1926.
  Constable Jim: We found this on the passenger seat of her car...
  Edgar: What's a "car"?^note This is Artistic License – History itself, since during his lifetime Poe would've understood a "car" to mean a horse-drawn carriage.
  • Even the basic idea of this show is a glaring anachronism, as Poe happily lampshades in the Kickstarter video, announcing that according to his research on Wikipedia his murder mystery dinner will not only be the best but the first and only murder mystery dinner (since the idea of a "murder mystery dinner" was, according to The Other Wiki, invented in 1981 in Real Life).
  • Eddie Dantes reveals himself to be the great-grandson of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The earl's great-grandchildren were generally born in the mid-17th century.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Poe's accusation of Hemingway being the murderer.
  Poe: And this man (smacks Wilde across the face while pointing at Hemingway) is a liar and indebted to Eddie for losing a sports bet. And he hates going to Spain.
  Wilde (scandalized): Whaaat?
• Artistic License – History: Openly, unabashedly and gloriously. See Anachronism Stew and Flanderization for specifics.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: When trying to find someone to take notes on possible motives for murder, Lenore asks, "Which of you is the best writer?" Cue everyone (except Annabel) raising their hands. Lenore rolls her eyes and tosses the pen to H.G. Wells.
• Bait-and-Switch: Several times, including a memorable one by Hemingway.
• Bitch Alert: Charlotte Brontë's introduction has to be one of the most unexpected examples, and it efficiently tells us everything we need to know about her character.
  Edgar: Here is your character card for the evening!
  Charlotte: Ugh, she sounds poor! Did you write this? Is this going to take very long?
• Bittersweet Ending: The killers are caught and punished, but most of the cast is dead. However, the epilogue has Annabel and H.G. return as ghosts, opening the door for them reuniting with Edgar and Lenore, respectively.
• Blatant Lies: George Eliot is totally a man! He has two masculine names, that's how you can tell!
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Oscar Wilde after defeating the Brontë sisters with the Wells microwave all the while having a gun safely tucked in his jacket. He takes a look at it, looks at the camera, and declares: "In hindsight, I really should have just used this gun!"
• Broad Strokes: This show's relationship to the previous Socially Awkward Poe "canon", where Annabel Lee was already a ghost, the idea of this dinner party was mentioned but without any of the murder, and Lenore ends up with John Proctor as her ghostly soulmate rather than H.G. Wells.
• The Butler Did It: Played with and deconstructed. Lenore maintains that she can't be the killer because she is already dead, and also seems to be the only member without a motive to kill anyone. However, Oscar Wilde points out that murdering others would provide her with undead friends.
  Lenore: I am not the killer! What would my motive even be?!
  Oscar: Feeling lonely? Make some new ghost friends?
• Camp Gay: Oscar Wilde.
• Captain Obvious: Agatha Christie is found dead, with a knife and nine additional holes in her back. Edgar's conclusion, after individually counting all nine stab wounds:
  "She was stabbed."
• Cannot Convey Sarcasm: In the first episode, Mary Shelley makes the lamest joke possible about her own novel. Through a combination of the joke's stupidity and her dead serious delivery, everyone present either misses it or charitably pretends they did.
• Casting Gag: Episode 11 reveals Laura Spencer as Jane Austen, referencing her role as Jane in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. This is especially noteworthy as she is acting alongside fellow stars Ashley Clements and Mary Kate Wiles.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Downplayed example. They never really take the dark premise seriously, but the death of Annabel is a genuine tearjerker, and things are a bit less silly afterwards.
• Chekhov's Gun: Literally. In Chapter 11, Charlotte wields a gun given to her by her lover, Anton Chekhov. It's a subversion, though, as it has never been established before and when it's fired, goes off harmlessly into the ceiling. (Although note that this is also true of the Trope Namer in Uncle Vanya.)
  • The actual Chekhov's Gun turns out to be the "pet rock" Edgar once gave to Annabel as a birthday present and then retrieves from her corpse as a Tragic Keepsake, which he uses to kill Dantes in self-defense.
• Closed Circle: Everyone’s stuck in Edgar Allan Poe’s mansion, as the killer kills anyone who tries to leave.
• The Comically Serious: Our two gothic authors, Mary and Edgar, seem to share a propensity for both dourness and dramatics.
  Edgar: Parties aren't the place for jokes, Lenore.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Eddie is found dead, head plunged in his plate of soup, everyone gets their turn at completely misunderstanding the situation as being All Part of the Show, as Poe desperately tries to state that This Is Reality. Has to be expected for writers.
  • H.G. Wells thinks it's a game and sticks his head in the soup too.
  • Charlotte Brontë corrects him: they're supposed to wait their turns to stick their heads in the soup.
  • George Eliot imagines that this is the beginning of the game — investigating the nature of the soup.
  • Louisa May Alcott understands that they should rather investigate the murder — for the murder mystery game. She then proceeds to read her character card and wait until this somehow solves the murder mystery.
  • Ernest Hemingway thinks everyone has gone mad — the murder mystery game must be solved logically, looking for the motive of the murder.
  Hemingway: Who benefited the most from killing ... (picks up Eddie's character card) "Virgil, the foul-smelling orangutan"?
• Control Freak: Charlotte Brontë quickly takes control of her character card and makes a few changes. Has to be expected from a fellow successful author.
• Costume Porn: One of the main draws of this production, aside from the comedy, along with Scenery Porn (the show was filmed in a gorgeous century home) and even a little Food Porn (too bad nobody eats the delicious-looking roast Lenore made in the first episode opening titles once the murders start).
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Made fun of with Frankenstein. Oscar Wilde quotes the Signature Line "It's ALIVE! when Mary Shelley is electrocuted — both of these are from the movie and not her book. Later on, he and George Eliot get embroiled in a Seinfeldian Conversation over the famous I Am Not Shazam dispute over the name of Frankenstein's monster (Eliot corrects Wilde that the monster was not named "Frankenstein" and thinks it might have instead been named "Karen").
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Poe loses no time in being disagreeable to Eddie, and has ... interesting ideas about table plans.
• Creative Closing Credits:
  • The end credits show each actor's name superimposed over a picture of the real historical figure they were playing. Notable because in some cases, this had to be fudged — Guy de Vere, Lenore and Annabel Lee are shown using illustrations of the fictional characters from the real poems, Krishanti is portrayed as the Tarot card The High Priestess, Eddie Dantes is his ancestor Edward de Vere, and Constables Jim and Jimmy are a comic 19th-century illustration of incompetent policemen.
  • The illustrations for Lenore and Annabel Lee aren't period illustrations but modern artwork created by famous Gothic illustrator Abigail Larson.
  • The final credit scroll also reveals that "The Microwave" was, in fact, a credited role, and was in fact played by a real well-known actress (Rachel DiPillo from Chicago Med), as a Brick Joke punchline for a bonus feature showing the entire cast and crew of the show auditioning for this role and failing to get it.
• Deadpan Snarker: Almost all of the characters get to snark at some point, but Lenore, Charlotte Brontë and Oscar Wilde reign supreme.
• Death as Comedy: The deaths are usually ridiculous and none of the characters take things that seriously.
  • Besides the many deaths that occur onscreen, Charlotte Brontë casually mentions the sudden death of her sister Emily as the punchline to a funny story. An early hint that this version of Brontë is evil.
  • Subverted by Annabel Lee's death, which is depicted much more seriously — even disturbingly — and ends the episode on a downer.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: H.G. Wells and Annabel, with Lenore and Poe, respectively.
• Disconnected by Death: Krishanti’s using a phone right before the killer strangles her to death with the cord.
• Dramatically Delayed Drug: Played for laughs in Episode 9. Constables Jim and Jimmy partake in glasses Poe's wine while on the job, but even though they have been sipping the wine since the previous episode, it isn't until immediately after they have agreed to help solve the murder mystery and finished their wine that the poison takes hold and kills them both.
  Constable Jimmy: Funnily enough, the first course I took in the Constable Academy was "What to do in Case Your Dinner Party Turns Into A Mass Homicide". [takes out pamphlet] And the first rule is...
  Constables Jim and Jimmy: [reading slowly, in realization] "Don't drink anything."
  [Both fall down dead.]
  Lenore: Welp, not gonna say I didn't see that coming.
• Dying Declaration of Love: Annabel’s final words to Edgar Allan Poe: “It was always you.”
• Flanderization: Much of the show's humor comes from this, building the characters' personalities entirely off of a stereotype based on one or two elements of the real person's work and then exaggerating it up to eleven, often to a level that's almost Canon Defilement for people familiar with the real history. It's particularly notable that while some of the characterizations were just exaggerations of how they were seen in life — Poe's neuroticism, Dickinson's reclusiveness — others are wildly divergent.
  • H.G. Wells is imagined as a Shrinking Violet nerd simply because he wrote science fiction, while in Real Life he was a brazen womanizer who almost defined the Kavorka Man.
  • George Eliot using a male pseudonym and having a nasty attitude about other women writers gets flanderized into her entire role in the story being that she poses as a macho stereotype in public. (The real Mary Ann Evans never actually dressed or acted as a man in public, although her fellow literary George, George Sand, famously did.)
  • Perhaps most of all, Charlotte Brontë gets a massive Historical Villain Upgrade into a flanderized version of one of the protagonists of the romances George Eliot hated so much — a status-obsessed wealthy Alpha Bitch — when in Real Life Brontë was very much a Shrinking Violet who was reluctant to emerge from her pseudonym and join the literary social scene due to her impoverished background. (The title character of Jane Eyre was very much an Author Avatar.) And, of course, she also wasn't actually a mass murderer.
  • The idea of Charlotte Brontë shrugging off the death of her sister Emily as Emily being a Drama Queen, or Anne joining in on a killing spree with her while dying of the same tuberculosis that had just taken Emily is some really dark Black Comedy for any Brontë scholars watching.
• Granola Girl: Louisa May Alcott's birthday party will be tree-themed. Everybody comes dressed as their favorite tree!
• Embarrassing First Name: Combined with Embarrassing Middle Name, as Wells declines to reveal what H.G. stands for until he lies dying in Lenore's arms.
  Wells: It's Herbert. Herbert George.
  Lenore: ... That's a terrible name.
• Emotionless Girl: Mary Shelley's default setting.
• Establishing Character Moment: Everyone.
  • Edgar sits in silence, waiting on his guests, before beginning to fuss over whether or not anyone, specifically Annabel Lee, will actually show up.
  • Lenore puts a shot glass inside her wine glass and drinks them both at once, before snarking at Edgar.
  • Hemingway reveals he didn't bring food, he brought a knife so he can catch a wild boar for their dinner. He then rudely throws his coat at Lenore for her to catch.
  • Charlotte Brontë gets a Bitch Alert to end them all, upon reading her character card: "Oh, she sounds poor."
  • Oscar Wilde sets up a dramatic entrance for himself, and announces, "You can never be overdressed or over-educated."
  • George Eliot attempts to posture and pass herself off as a Jerk Jock, but goes way overboard and fools no one.
  • H.G. Wells shows up with an invention of his own creation and shyly starts rambling to explain it, only to get talked over and ushered inside.
  • Emily Dickinson knocks and politely introduces herself, admitting she doesn't leave her room much. Edgar and Lenore barely notice her presence.
  • Louisa May Alcott brought weeds for her dish. "You'll find you can eat anything if you're hungry enough."
  • Mary Shelley responds to Edgar making a pun about her most famous work with a stony stare, only to make one herself — and get irritated when Edgar and Lenore don't laugh.
  • Dostoevsky is initially an intimidating presence, startling Edgar and glowering as he announces he brought vodka. However, when Lenore steals the vodka for herself, he reacts with good humor.
  • Annabel cheerfully greets everyone and fawns over her date.
  • Eddie is also cheerful and happy to be there, and casually establishes himself as The Ace. This last one turns out to be a subversion.
• Everyone Is a Suspect: As the series continues, it is gradually revealed that almost every guest had a motive to want Eddie dead.
• Faceplanting into Food: Played for drama when the first episode reveals Eddie facedown in the soup (to Lenore's dismay). Played for laughs in the next episode when H.G. Wells, thinking it's part of the game, does the same. Turns out to be an invoked trope (see Faking the Dead below).
• Faking the Dead: Eddie was alive the whole time and one of the killers.
• 555: Edgar claims that, thanks to having one of the first phone numbers in the country, his number is just 555.
• Forgettable Character: Everyone (besides Annabel) forgets Emily Dickinson exists. The series itself gets in on the act, with her pushed to the background in many shots. In the introductions to each episode, while other characters (including Agatha Christie, who is killed off as soon as she shows up) are introduced with their place card being put down and a picture of their actor, Emily Dickinson is introduced with no picture and her place card being taken away.
• Hammerspace: Comes and goes as per Rule of Funny. In Chapter 3, H.G. Wells produces a poster board, stand, and relevant photographs offscreen; in Chapter 8, Hemingway pulls a pint of beer out of his jacket. Lampshaded both times, as other characters ask where those items came from. Also, Oscar Wilde always has a change of clothes for every occasion.
• Historical Beauty Upgrade: The actors are all very good-looking people (as the comments reflect) in very good-looking costumes (with the exception of Louisa May Alcott's dress). As the pictures in the Creative Closing Credits indicate, they're quite an upgrade over the real writers in many cases.
• Historical Domain Crossover: Multiple famous historical authors interact at the same party at Edgar Allan Poe's home during the 1800s, despite a number of them being either too young to be famous (George Eliot, Louisa May Alcott) or not yet alive (Oscar Wilde, H.G. Wells, Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie) to have been there during Poe's lifetime. This is not explained or commented on by the series at all, but it makes for a delightful mashup.
• Homage: The series is modeled after Clue and loaded with references.
• Informal Eulogy: Mary Shelley delivers one after the authors find Louisa May Alcott dead.
  Shelley: Louisa May Alcott, a spinster through and through, has now reached the pinnacle of transcendentalism. May she be at one with the Earth, and may she find her peace.
  Wilde: ... Well, someone had that ready to go.
  Shelley: I'm just really good at eulogies!
• The Ingenue: Annabel Lee is an innocent, gentle young girl.
• Irony: Electricity is used to kill Mary Shelley, when it was used to bring Frankenstein's monster to life.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: In Chapter 4, following Hemingway's suggestion in the previous chapter.
• Lights Off, Somebody Dies: In the first episode the lights go off and Eddie’s found face-first in his soup. The final episode reveals he faked his own death.
• Like Brother and Sister: Poe and Lenore have this vibe, aided by the fact that they are played by a pair of siblings. They mock each other a lot, but there's underlying affection between them.
• Mad Scientist: H.G. Wells is in the early stages of inventing the microwave. He's not quite there yet.
• Masochist's Meal: The literary guests belong in two categories: those who didn't even bother to bring food and those who brought this kind. Charlotte Brontë and Dostoevsky did think of bringing alchohol. But then, Brontë's wine was poisoned.
  Louisa May Alcott: You'll find you can eat anything ... if you're hungry enough.
• The Nicknamer: Charlotte has a demeaning nickname for almost all of the guests. Lenore is no slouch either.
• Of Corpse He's Alive: Poe tries to pretend H.G is just drunk in front of the constables. It doesn't work very well.
• Once an Episode: Each episode has at least one person dying.
  • Chapter 1: Eddie. Subverted, since he didn’t actually die.
  • Chapter 2: Louisa May Alcott.
  • Chapter 3: Mary Shelley.
  • Chapter 4: Fyodor Dostoevsky.
  • Chapter 5: Agatha Christie and George Eliot.
  • Chapter 6: Krishanti.
  • Chapter 7: Emily Dickinson.
  • Chapter 8: H.G. Wells.
  • Chapter 9: Officers Jim & Jimmy and Annabel Lee.
  • Chapter 10: Technically speaking, nobody is murdered, but since we learn that the Brontë sisters were the killers, you argue that the mystery died in this episode.
  • Chapter 11: Eddie, for real this time.
• On the Next: Every episode ends with a Stinger showing very short out of context Funny Moments from the next episode. About half of these are real, while the rest are Deleted Scenes or Bloopers. Most memorable is an anxious Hemingway working a cigarette around in his mouth until he swallows it.
• Overly Long Gag: The slow clap in Chapter 11.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: George Eliot wants to appear male, and plans to achieve the goal by using a Wig, Dress, Accent setup, a persona that's oozing with bro stereotypes and heavy heaps of Suspiciously Specific Denial. Literally no one is fooled (except for Ernest Hemingway).
• Perpetual Frowner: Poe and Mary Shelley.
• Poetic Serial Killer: Most of the authors are murdered in a way that references their work: Mary Shelley by electrocution, Dostoyevsky by axe, Agatha Christie with 10 stabs from an Indian blade, and Emily Dickinson "crushed by the feather of loneliness." Subverted by the murders of Louisa May Alcott (whose coughing fit turned out to be unrelated to her death) and George Elliot (who was mistaken for Oscar Wilde).
• Police Are Useless: Constables Jim and Jimmy.
• Prochronic Product: H. G. Wells showed up to the party with a prototype microwave, which everyone immediately dismisses as stupid.
• Pun: Poe tries to make one on Frankenstein, as an ice-breaker upon meeting Mary Shelley. She seems unimpressed, but then quickly tries to join in the fun with her own joke, to similar (lame) results.
  Edgar: I get it, I got it ... the first time.
• Red Herring: The name of this trope is lampshaded with Lenore's "red herring soup" (herring cooked in a red pepper and garlic sauce) which multiple times becomes involved in the plot as a way to draw suspicion that immediately turns out to be unfounded:
  • Eddie is the first person to take a sip of the soup and collapses immediately afterwards, although H.G. Wells goes on to then dunk his whole face in the soup without ill effect. Eddie was Faking the Dead, so his own death was a red herring.
  • Emily Dickinson is the only person left unchaperoned when the group splits up into pairs (because of the Perception Filter surrounding her) and is skulking suspiciously through the kitchen afterwards, but it turns out it was only to taste the soup herself (which she finds to be pretty good).
  • Finally just to put a final button on this joke in the second-to-last episode Charlotte Brontë screams in terror at Ernest Hemingway brandishing his knife dripping with what she claims is blood, but it turns out it's just because he dropped it in a bowl of soup just before she came in.
  • In a less literal sense of "red herring", Ernest Hemingway seems to have been deliberately set up as one — it's almost too obvious he's the killer, with his constant threats of violence, a lingering Traitor Shot of him looking very shifty as he's the last one who stays behind when everyone else leaves the vault of corpses, and the fact that he's an obvious Foil to Poe and rival for Annabel Lee's affections. Indeed, toward the end it feels like Ernest being the killer despite the obviousness of it is a deliberate Untwist, until it's a double-Untwist and he's both actually innocent and one of the last survivors.
• Ridiculously Alive Undead: Lenore — and returned spirits like her — looks so alive that Charlotte forgets she's dead multiple times. She can still touch people, drink alcohol, and cook. However, she mentions it takes a lot of concentration to go corporeal like this, giving her an out on being the murderer, and is immune to toxins.
  Lenore: (swirling her martini glass) This sort of thing is all I go corporeal for.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Louisa May Alcott attempts this in the second episode.
  • And Mary Shelley later on which results in her death when she was electrocuted by the door handle when trying to get out.
• Shrinking Violet: Emily Dickinson is so shy and inconspicuous that she remains invisible to Poe and Lenore until she speaks up.
• Silent Snarker: Lenore makes instantly clear which guests she likes and who she doesn't, using her epic eye roll skills. Oscar Wilde comes in a close second, the latter also being a master of stylish Facepalms.
• Skewed Priorities: Eddie is found dead in his plate. Lenore's reaction ?
  Lenore: Right in the soup!
• Small Role, Big Impact: Jane Austen's role is comparatively small, but very important, as her death gets the Brontë sisters involved with Eddie.
• Songs in the Key of Panic: The Title Sequence gets shorter and shorter every episode as characters get killed off and removed from the credits, and the Theme Tune accelerates in tempo to compensate, giving the sense of increasing frantic anxiety as more and more people die.
• Stab the Picture: George Eliot is killed by having a picture of Oscar Wilde smashed over her head—while she isn't the featured person in the painting, it is later revealed that the killer had been counting on Wilde to enter the bathroom first, and intended to kill him in the ambush. Eliot entering it first was not part of the plan.
• String Theory: H.G. Wells manages to generate one of these offscreen in Chapter 3.
  Annabel Lee: ... Where did you get those pictures?
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: George Eliot. It's two male names, easy to remember.
  You seem to have me confused with some sort of damsel. I understand, I have very soft skin. Now, show me to the billiard room ... or a voting booth!
  My character is a duchess. Since I have no insight into the mind of a woman, I wondered if anyone would be willing to trade for a male character?
• Symbolic Cast Fadeout: The opening credits show Lenore putting placeholders for each of the main characters (all famous authors or one of Edgar Allan Poe's characters) on the table for the titular dinner party, their image appearing beside it (Except for Emily Dickinson, whose placeholder is instead removed from the table, since the cast tends to forget she's there). As each of the characters is killed off, their placeholder is cut from the title sequence.
• Ten Little Murder Victims: The primary plot. Edgar Allan Poe invites fellow famous writers to his home, offering them a fake murder mystery that soon turns all too real. The guests even include Agatha Christie, who runs suspiciously late and misses the first murder, and when she arrives in episode 5, she has also been murdered, with a knife in her back.
• Two Dun It: It turns out Charlotte Brontë was the murderer after all, despite being tied to a chair during two of the murders after being accused of killing Dostoevsky, because she had an accomplice in the form of her sister Anne. Then after it's pointed out this still doesn't explain the simultaneous deaths of Agatha Christie and George Eliot while Charlotte was still incapacitated, it's revealed they were both accomplices to the real mastermind ... Eddie Dantes.
• Villain Ball: After the killers are revealed, they proceed to explain how they killed everyone, what they are going to do next and why they did it in the first place. They also do quite a bit of Evil Gloating, which provokes Poe into attacking them.
  • Special mention has to be given to Anne Brontë, who knocks Oscar out with her fists, but instead of taking the gun from him and finishing him off, she just leaves him there and walks towards her sister.
• You Meddling Kids: Anne Brontë drops one of these at the end, blaming the evil plan's failure on Annabel Lee, although her sister Charlotte disagrees and blames it on Jane Austen.