History Recap / ColumboS03E07

* AdamWesting: "Tommy Brown" is not too different from Johnny Cash. He dresses all in black, he sings country/western and gospel, he has a similar name, he was in prison (Cash never actually served time in prison but it was part of his image), and he even served in the Air Force.

* GreedyTelevangelist: Edna, while frugal, only insists she and her colleagues save money to later build an excessively lavish temple using blackmail to make Tommy play for audiences and rake in the dough. She fails to consider that Tommy would arrange to murder her and Maryann in order to break free.

Directed by: Nicholas Colasanto\\

* MeaningfulEcho: Tommy's song "I've seen the Light" is sung in the beginning, taking on a tinge of hypocrisy, as his tendency to sleep around with underage girls (on top of murdering the victim of the week) makes his far less saintly than his song implies. In the end, Columbo plays his song on the radio after Tommy soberly confesses to the murder, admitting he felt very guilty about the murder. ''This time'', the song sincerely reflects Tommy and his new-found conscience.

* GreedyTelevangelist: Edna, while frugal, only insists she and her colleagues save money to later build an excessively lavish temple using blackmail to make Tommy play for audiences and rake in the dough. She fails to consider that Tommy would arrange to murder her and Maryann to break free.

* GreedyTelevangelist: Edna, while frugal, only insists she and her colleagues save money to later build an excessively lavish temple using blackmail to make Tommy figuratively play to her tune. She fails to consider that Tommy would arrange to murder her and Maryann to break free.

* SympatheticMurderer: Tommy, more or less. After Columbo finally nails him, Tommy even expresses relief that he's been caught, and admits that he would eventually have given himself up. Although him committing statutory rape in the past and trying to do so again after the murders negate this.

Tommy Brown (Music/JohnnyCash) is a very popular country gospel singer. As the episode opens he is giving a concert, with his wife Edna (Creator/IdaLupino) singing in the backing choir. Theirs is not a happy marriage. Edna, a religious crusader, liberated Tommy from a prison work farm in Arkansas and set him off on a country music career. However, Edna basically treats Tommy as a slave, taking ''all'' the proceeds of his music career for her religious crusades, including a grand new Baptist temple that she's building. Tommy doesn't even own a car. The reason Edna feels free to do this is that she knows for a fact that Tommy once committed statutory rape by having relations with a 16-year-old girl. That girl, Maryann, is part of the backing choir along with Edna, and she is perfectly willing to go to the cops if Edna tells her to. Edna is using Maryann as blackmail to make Tommy toe the line. And Tommy can't even enjoy the sex and drugs part of SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll, because [[TheFundamentalist fundamentalist]] Edna is watching him like a hawk.

Tommy resolves to free himself by committing murder. His very risky scheme involves luring both Edna and Maryann onboard the private propeller plane that Tommy himself will fly from Bakersfield to UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, the site of their next show. He slips barbiturates in coffee to both the women. Then, after they're out cold, he takes a parachute hidden in his navigation box and leaps from the plane. All kinds of things ''could'' go wrong with this plot, including parachuting from a low altitude, but none of them do. Edna and Maryann are killed when the plane crashes. Tommy breaks his leg upon hitting the ground, which only makes his story more plausible. He hides the chute under a dead tree and manages to make it to the road, where he claims he was thrown clear of the plane upon the crash. The federal investigators buy this but the LAPD's representative, Lt. Columbo, doesn't. Edna's brother insists that Tommy killed her, and Columbo starts noticing inconsistencies, like how there are no ashes from the navigation papers that should have been in the box.

Tommy resolves to free himself by committing murder. His very risky scheme involves luring both Edna and Maryann onboard the private propeller plane that Tommy himself will fly from Bakersfield to UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, the site of their next show. He slips barbituates in coffee to both the women. Then, after they're out cold, he takes a parachute hidden in his navigation box and leaps from the plane. All kinds of things ''could'' go wrong with this plot, including parachuting from a low altitude, but none of them do. Edna and Maryann are killed when the plane crashes. Tommy breaks his leg upon hitting the ground, which only makes his story more plausible. He hides the chute under a dead tree and manages to make it to the road, where he claims he was thrown clear of the plane upon the crash. The federal investigators buy this but the LAPD's representative, Lt. Columbo, doesn't. Edna's brother insists that Tommy killed her, and Columbo starts noticing inconsistencies, like how there are no ashes from the navigation papers that should have been in the box.

* BlackmailBackfire: Edna keeps Tommy in line, by threatening to turn him in for statutory rape. However, she neglects to consider that he might decide to kill both her and the victim, Maryann.

* {{Hypocrite}}: Edna is this, claiming to be a good religious woman while she blackmails Tommy over having sex with a 16 year old and keeping the girl on as leverage, rather than help the girl out.

* JailbaitTaboo: How Edna got leverage over Tommy: his weakness for underage girls. After he kills her he starts creeping on another backup singer who looks like she might be just as young.

* SympatheticMurderer: Tommy, more or less. After Columbo finally nails him, Tommy even expresses relief that he's been caught, and admits that he would eventually have given himself up.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Tommy may be guilty of statutory rape (and later double murder), but even he is infuriated at Edna's hypocrisy at using religion as an excuse to blackmail him, all the while keeping the 16-year-old girl by her side instead of helping her.