History Recap / ColumboS03E04

Dr. Keppel is showing a motivational film to some of his clients. One of them, Vic Norris, is pretty pissed-off at Keppel, because Keppel has tried to ensnare him into blackmail via the use of a HoneyPot named Tanya Baker. Norris isn't cooperating, however, and has threatened to go to the authorities. Keppel decides to kill him instead, in a way that will cast suspicion towards Norris's wife. First, he makes a call to Mrs. Norris claiming to be Tanya's "boyfriend", asking her to meet him somewhere where she won't have an alibi. Then, during the reception before the screening, he gets Norris loaded on some incredibly salty caviar. Next, he splices some subliminal inserts of a refreshing drink into the film so that Norris will feel the urge to get up and go to the fountain in the lobby for some water. For his alibi, Keppel makes everyone think he's narrating the film from a podium on the stage, when in reality they're listening to a prerecorded narration track. After mouthing along with the recording for several minutes, Keppel dismisses himself to a back room, and waits for Norris to exit the theater. When Norris exits, Keppel barges into the lobby and shoots him with a .45 caliber from his office that he's fitted with a calibration converter so it will fire .22 caliber ammunition. Immediately after the shooting, he returns the gun to the display cabinet, hides the converter in a lamp, and returns to his place at the theater podium just as the film is concluding.

* RecordedAudioAlibi: Subliminal advertising expert Dr Keppel hosts a screening where he shows a film to the businessmen who commissioned it. Since they may wish to revise the script later the film has no audio and is instead narrated live by Dr Keppel. At least, it seems like hes narrating it, but midway through he switches to a tape he made ahead of time so he can sneak off without anyone noticing.

** Columbo and Keppel start playing this game right around the time that Keppel, with Columbo's prompting, explains how someone could have hypothetically gotten Norris to leave the theater via subliminals, especially by encouraging him to eat salty caviar before the screening to make him thirsty. They play this game some more when Columbo confronts Keppel at the golf course and starts asking uncomfortable questions about Tanya Baker. Keppel cheats at his golf game, pulling a ball out of the rough and saying very pointedly to Columbo, "''and no one will ever know''." After this Columbo drops the facade and, in response to a challenge from Keppel, says that he thinks Keppel killed Norris.

* BerserkButton: Keppel finally snaps on Columbo once, when Columbo harasses him in the middle of a high-stakes golf game nitpicking Keppel over the witness testimony that they saw him in the auditorium, when in actuality he was on stage behind a curtain. Keppel seethes that until one of the witnesses recants their testimony that they saw him, Columbo's suspicious are fruitless.

* BerserkButton: Keppel finally snaps on Columbo once, when Columbo harasses him in the middle of a high-stakes golf game nitpicking Keppel over the witness testimony that they saw him in the auditorium, when in actuality he was on stage behind a curtain. Keppel seethes that until one of the witnesses recants their testimony that they saw him, Columbo's suspicious are fruitless.

* TheGhost: Tanya Baker, the HoneyPot model whom Keppel used to manipulate Norris and whom he's apparently used more than once in similar schemes. She's discussed several times, and Columbo even mentions calling her, but we never see the character. [[DeletedRole Although her performer is still listed in the end credits.]] (Although you can see her picture in Keppel's film. [[MsFanservice She isn't hard to spot]].)

Guest Starring: Creator/RobertCulp, Louise Latham]

* IdiotBall:
** Keppel just had to hold on to that calibration converter. Couldn't have, say, thrown it into a random garbage can somewhere.
** Once Roger figures out how Keppel committed the murder, he blackmails him for $50,000 without anything to dissuade Keppel from murdering him too. Even more stupid is he naively believes that Keppel will follow through, and gets shot at his secondary job while alone in a projection booth.

** Roger's decision to blackmail Keppel instead of turning him over to the police, he says is due to the fact that his mother is very sick, he works two jobs to take care of her that don't pay well, and he intends to use the blackmail money to fund a new career in real estate prospecting. Keppel ends up murdering Roger, and we never find out what happens to Roger's ailing mother now that she's lost the son who was taking care of her, nor does Columbo ever speak of her reaction to finding out about Roger's death.]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Roger's decision to blackmail Keppel instead of turning him over to the police, he says is due to the fact that his mother is very sick, he works two jobs to take care of her that don't pay well, and he intends to use the blackmail money to fund a new career in real estate prospecting. Keppel ends up murdering Roger, and we never find out what happens to Roger's ailing mother now that she's lost the son who was taking care of her, nor does Columbo ever speak of her reaction to finding out about Roger's death.]

Guest Starring: Creator/RobertCulp, Creator/LouiseLatham]

* SharpDressedMan: Crealtor/RobertCulp always wore great suits in his Columbo appearances, but he knocks it out of the park in this episode. Standouts are the sharp double-breasted pinstripe suit and vest he wears to kill Vic Norris, and certainly no one else in the world could have sold the bright yellow motorcycle jacket as smartly as Culp does in the supermarket scene.

* FairPlayWhodunnit: Just like every episode. We see how Keppel committed the crime, and right before the final sequence, The audience sees Columbo taking photos of himself in Keppel's office, and can assume Columbo is going to use them to subliminally message Keppel himself, and get him to give up the location of the converter.

Dr. Keppel is showing a motivational film to some of his clients. One of them, Vic Norris, is pretty pissed-off at Keppel, because Keppel has tried to ensnare him into blackmail via the use of a HoneyPot named Tanya Baker. Norris isn't cooperating, however, and has threatened to go to the authorities. Keppel decides to kill him instead, in a way that will cast suspicion towards Norris's wife. First, he makes a call to Mrs. Norris claiming to be Tanya's "boyfriend", asking her to meet him somewhere where she won't have an alibi. Then, during the reception before the screening, he gets Norris loaded on some incredibly salty caviar. Next, he splices some subliminal inserts of a refreshing drink into the film so that Norris will feel the urge to get up and go to the fountain in the lobby for some water. For his alibi, Keppel makes everyone think he's narrating the film from a podium on the stage, when in reality they're listening to a prerecorded narration track. After mouthing along with the recording for several minutes, Keppel dismisses himself to a back room, and waits for Norris to exit the theater. When Norris exits, Keppel barges into the lobby and shoots him with a .45 caliber from his office that he's fitted with a calibration converted so it will fire .22 caliber ammunition. Immediately after the shooting, he returns the gun to the display cabinet, hides the converter in a lamp, and returns to his place at the theater podium just as the film is concluding.

* {{Gaslighting}}: Before the events of the episode, Mrs. Norris would've told anyone in confidence that she and her husband were HappilyMarried. Keppel, however, is so manipulative that he only needs one phonecall claiming to be the boyfriend of her husband's "mistress" (and that he even hired a detective who found proof) to make her question if he even loved her.

* ManipulativeBastard: Keppel's [[EstablishingCharacterMoment first 10 minutes]] consist of him gaslighting Mrs. Norris by saying her husband is cheating on her with a girl named Tanya Baker, and that he knows because he's her boyfriend and had hired a private detective. All so he can have a [[TheScapegoat scapegoat]] for Mr. Norris's murder. The poor woman falls for it hook line and sinker.

Dr. Keppel is showing a motivational film to some of his clients. One of them, Vic Norris, is pretty pissed-off at Keppel, because Keppel has tried to ensnare him into blackmail via the use of a HoneyPot named Tanya Baker. Norris isn't cooperating, however, and has threatened to go to the police to report Keppel's blackmailing. Keppel decides to kill him instead, in a way that will cast suspicion towards Norris's wife. First, he makes a call to Mrs. Norris claiming to be Tanya's "boyfriend", asking her to meet him somewhere where she won't have an alibi. Then, during the reception before the screening, he gets Norris loaded on some incredibly salty caviar. Next, he splices some subliminal inserts of a refreshing drink into the film so that Norris will feel the urge to get up and go to the fountain in the lobby for some water. For his alibi, Keppel makes everyone think he's narrating the film from a podium on the stage, when in reality they're listening to a prerecorded narration track. After mouthing along with the recording for several minutes, Keppel dismisses himself to a back room, and waits for Norris to exit the theater. When Norris exits, Keppel barges into the lobby and shoots him with a .45 caliber from his office that he's fitted with a calibration converted so it will fire .22 caliber ammunition. Immediately after the shooting, he returns the gun to the display cabinet, hides the converter in a lamp, and returns to his place at the theater podium just as the film is concluding.

* AmateurSleuth: Played with. As is typical of Columbo's method, he recruits Keppel to "aid" him in his investigation, even thought they both know Keppel did it, and Columbo attempts to feed Keppel's ego by saying that Keppel would be a great detective. While it works, Keppel's intelligence, even if he is completely egotistical, is pretty much on-par with Columbo's own, and keeps him from tripping himself up and giving Columbo an easy win in his take down of him, especially since he knows in every instance that Columbo is trying to trap him.

** This also comes up when Keppel offers to drive Columbo to the scene of the crime. He points out that Columbo probably expects him to [[INeverSaidItWasPoison drive to the crime scene (which he shouldn't know the location of) and incriminate himself.]] Keppel just asks for directions in a smarmy tone.

* AmateurSleuth: Played with. As is typical of Columbo's method, he recruits Keppel to "aid" him in his investigation, even thought they both know Keppel did it, and Columbo attempts to feed Keppel's ego by saying that Keppel would be a great detective. While it works, [[spoiler: Keppel's intelligence, even if he is completely egotistical, is pretty much on-par with Columbo's own, and keeps him from tripping himself up and giving Columbo an easy win in his take down of him, especially since he knows in every instance that Columbo is trying to trap him.]]

* ChekhovsGun: A literal example. The Colt .45 Keppel uses to kill Norris is locked in a gun case in plain sight right on Keppel's wall, and a "calibration converter" Keppel used to convert the slug from a .45 to a .22 is screwed into a lamp in Keppel's office. Due to the use of the converter, the .45 doesn't appear to have been fired when examined by police. [[spoiler: When Columbo subliminally gets Keppel to reveal the location of the converter, Columbo uses it to seal Keppel's fate.]]
* ChekhovsSkill: Keppel displays a mastery of using a phony voice when he lures Mrs. Norris out of her house to "meet" the jilted boyfriend of Tanya Baker, who he claims Vic Norris is having an affair with. Mrs. Norris does go to the phony meet, and thus has no alibi for when her husband was murdered. [[spoiler: Columbo doesn't fall for the ruse at all, and says if his wife, who has no head for crime, killed him, she could come up with a better phony alibi than that, and thus, he believes Mrs. Norris' claim.]]

* FairPlayWhodunnit: Just like every episode. We see how Keppel committed the crime, and right before the final sequence, [[spoiler: The audience sees Columbo taking photos of himself in Keppel's office, and can assume Columbo is going to use them to subliminally message Keppel himself, and get him to give up the location of the converter.]]

* {{Irony}}: [[spoiler: Keppel's method of using subliminal messaging to draw Vic Norris into the lobby for Keppel to murder him is used in exactly the same way to get Keppel to go to his office and reveal where he hid the calibration converter while Columbo is waiting to catch him.]]
* JerkAss: Mr...Er...DOCTOR Bart Keppel. And you can see that Creator/RobertCulp is absolutely having the time of his life playing him. Not only does he commit two murders, but he tries to pin them on the first victim's completely innocent wife, who wasn't even aware her husband was having an affair until shortly before his death.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Roger White. He's a very nice guy with a sick mother and immediately hits it off with Columbo, showing he has a heart of gold, but [[spoiler: He's willing to keep his knowledge of Keppel committing the murder of Vic Norris a secret if Keppel pays him $50,000.]]

* TooDumbToLive: [[spoiler: Roger White reveals he knows Keppel murdered Vic Norris, and how he was able to do so, and confronts him in a blackmail scheme without putting in place any fail safes to prevent Keppel from murdering him instead of paying the blackmail money. Since Keppel is a JerkAss, he naturally takes the cheaper option and simply murders the big, lovable boob.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Roger's decision to blackmail Keppel instead of turning him over to the police, he says is due to the fact that his mother is very sick, he works two jobs to take care of her that don't pay well, and he intends to use the blackmail money to fund a new career in real estate prospecting. [[spoiler: Keppel ends up murdering Roger, and we never find out what happens to Roger's ailing mother now that she's lost the son who was taking care of her, nor does Columbo ever speak of her reaction to finding out about Roger's death.]]
** Also, Mrs. Norris. [[spoiler: After her initial interview scene with Columbo, where he tells her he believes her weak alibi, we see her once more leaving her house before Keppel breaks in to steal Norris' gun to kill Roger, and she's never seen again, and is only referenced in dialogue until the episode's end.]]

* AmatuerSleuth: Played with. As is typical of Columbo's method, he recruits Keppel to "aid" him in his investigation, even thought they both know Keppel did it, and Columbo attempts to feed Keppel's ego by saying that Keppel would be a great detective. While it works, [[spoiler: Keppel's intelligence, even if he is completely egotistical, is pretty much on-par with Columbo's own, and keeps him from tripping himself up and giving Columbo an easy win in his take down of him, especially since he knows in every instance that Columbo is trying to trap him.]]

* BersekButton: Keppel finally snaps on Columbo once, when Columbo harasses him in the middle of a high-stakes golf game nitpicking Keppel over the witness testimony that they saw him in the auditorium, when in actuality he was on stage behind a curtain. Keppel seethes that until one of the witnesses recants their testimony that they saw him, Columbo's suspicious are fruitless.

* VoiceChangeling: Keppel manages to uncannily mimic a much younger-sounding, cuckolded boyfriend to lure Mrs. Norris out of her house and prevent her from having an alibi for her husband's murder.

* JerkAss: Mr...Er...DOCTOR Bart Keppel. And you can see that Creator/RobertCulp is absolutely having the time of his life playing him.

* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs: Columbo repeatedly addresses Keppel as "Mr. Keppel", only for Keppel to irritatedly correct him with "''Dr''. Keppel." It's obviously a deliberate effort by Columbo to irritate his suspect.

Third and last episode with Creator/RobertCulp as the villain, however he does appear in a supporting role as the father of Justin in [[Recap/ColumboS10E01 Columbo Goes to College]].