History Recap / ColumboS01E07

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Columbo is investigating a missing-person case once again. The body is only found at the ''end'' of the episode.

Title:"Blueprint for Murder"\\

* TheMissusAndTheEx: Goldie Williamson is wry about being replaced by a "child bride," but she's actually very fond of the new Mrs. Williamson. The fact that Beau remains emotionally closer to her than his new wife and pays an excellent alimony helps a lot.

* DoingItForTheArt: Give Markham credit for dedication. Most artists stop short of ''murdering'' someone in order to see their projects finished.

* HistoryMarchesOn: During his university lecture, Markham says that the pyramids were built by slave labor. Modern historians tend to think that they were built instead by thousands of conscript laborers.

* BluffingTheMurderer: As the expensive, painstaking search of the pit on the construction site seems to turn nothing up, Columbo looks more and more miserable and humiliated, making it seem as though Markham has fooled him into a wild goose chase. But it's not what Markham put in it before that matters, but what he ''plans'' to put in it.

** Columbo isn't fooled, but he plays along, then waits for for Markham to come back and bury the body in the foundation for real. He would have been in a lot of trouble if Markham had decided to, say, bury the body in the Sierra Nevadas instead. Though given that it's established that Columbo is stringing Markham along, it can be presumed that he has put at least one tail on him to make sure of his movements.

* IncrediblyLamePun: Columbo speculates about how Beau might have gotten chucked into the new foundation, which of course is a thinly veiled accusation in classic Columbo style. When Markham says that'll be hard to prove, Columbo says "I gotta come up with something ''concrete''", and then smirks.

"Blueprint for Murder" is the seventh [[BritishBrevity and last]] episode of the first season of ''Series/{{Columbo}}''.

Guest Starring: Creator/PatrickONeal, Creator/ForrestTucker, Creator/JanisPaige, Creator/PamelaAustin]

* AluminumChristmasTrees:
** Key to Markham's plot is the idea that a person who flew off to Europe, and didn't leave behind info as to what hotel he would be staying at, would be completely unreachable.
** At one point it is considered possible for a high-powered tycoon to take an international flight under a different name.

* TrophyWife: Jennifer is blonde and attractive and looks to be less than half of Beau's age. A not all that bitter Goldie says that Beau needed "youth."

** At one point it is considered possible for a high powered tycoon to take an international flight under a different name.

** Markham concocts a plan in which he will nudge Columbo into believing that the body was dumped in the foundation. Once the construction crew drills all the way down to the bottom of the foundation and comes up with nothing, not only will Columbo be humiliated, the foundation will then become the perfect place to hide the body for real when they re-pour. This requires that Columbo bite on the hints that Markham gives out. It also requires that the police don't search the horse ranch and stables, even though that's the last place Williamson was seen alive.

* ConMan: Williamson accuses Markham of taking advantage of his wife's naivety to get money from his projects, outright calling him one of these.

* TheMissusAndTheEx: Goldie Williamson is wry about being replaced by a "child bride", but she's actually very fond of the new Mrs. Williamson. The fact that Beau remains emotionally closer to her than his new wife and paying an excellent alimony helps a lot.

* NeverFoundTheBody: A crucial part of Markham's plot. If Williamson is found dead the money goes into a trust and the grand construction project is cancelled. But if he simply disappears, Jennifer will control the family assets for seven years.

* TrophyWife: Jennifer is blonde and attractive and looks to be less than half of Beau's age. A not all that bitter Goldie says that Beau needed "youth".

* AbsenceOfEvidence: Here, the absent thing is Bo himself, who had an appointment with his heart doctor to get the batteries in his pacemaker replaced and never showed. As, given his personality, he'd be unlikely to trust a strange doctor rather than his usual one, it's a sign that Bo's disappearance may not have been intentional.

* {{Egopolis}}: Subverted; Markham has named his city plans "Williamson City", presumably to act as a sop for Bo Williamson by playing on his ego. Except Williamson isn't impressed, thinks the whole idea is ludicrous, and wants no part in it.

* PoliceAreUseless: The cops apparently never thought to look for Bo at his home, especially not checking the sheds.

* RedHerring: Markham and Jennifer find Beau's bloodstained hat near a tennis court and the bloodtype matches with Beau's, implying that Markham made an elementary mistake and somehow managed to misplace his hat while hiding the body, except it turns out that Goldie shares Beau's bloodtype, her masseuse saw a fresh cut on her leg that wasn't there yesterday and she had several of Beau's hats in her closet with one of them now missing, meaning she planted the hat and the bloodstain on it herself and admits she did it to "get things moving along".

The only ''Columbo'' episode ever directed by Creator/PeterFalk.

* HollywoodDressCode: Goldie's fondness for gold lame is lampshaded by herself and later Markham, and is a reflection of her bright, brassy personality.

* TheMissusAndtheEx: Goldie Williamson is wry about being replaced by a "child bride", but she's actually very fond of the new Mrs. Williamson. The fact that Beau's remains emotionally closer to her than his new wife and paying an excellent alimony helps a lot.

** Columbo isn't fooled, but he plays along, then waits for for Markham to come back and bury the body in the foundation for real. He would have been in a lot of trouble if Markham had decided to, say, bury the body in the Sierra Nevadas instead.