Recap / Columbo S 02 E 02

Jarvis and Columbo surrounded by Jarvis' biggest fans.

Episode: Season 2, Episode 2
Title: "The Greenhouse Jungle"
Directed by: Boris Sagal
Written by: Jonathan Latimer
Air Date: October 15, 1972
Previous: Etude in Black
Next: The Most Crucial Game
Guest Starring: Ray Milland, Bob Dishy, Bradford Dillman, Sandra Smith

"The Greenhouse Jungle" is the second episode of the second season of Columbo.

Tony Goodland (Bradford Dillman) is a weak, emasculated husband whose wife Cathy (Sandra Smith) is openly cheating on him, even going so far as to live with her tennis instructor lover Ken Nichols. He still loves her, though, and jumps at the chance when the tennis instructor offers to clear out of Cathy's life in exchange for $50,000. Tony is a child of privilege from a very rich family but also an idiot so most of his money is tied up in a trust. He gets his uncle Jarvis (Ray Milland, in his second appearance on Columbo and first as the villain, as well as the first with a toupee) to assist him in a complex fake kidnapping scheme in which they will stage Tony's kidnapping, then use that as an excuse to break the trust and free up the $300,000 therein, which Tony will use to pay off Ken.

What Tony doesn't know is that Jarvis, who loathes Tony for being so submissive to his wife and loathes Cathy for humiliating the family, has no intention of going along with this. Rather than see $50,000 of family money go to an extortion payment for a dirtbag like Ken, Jarvis instead murders Tony and hides the ransom money.

Lt. Columbo is assigned to the case. Unusually, he has a partner, Sgt. Wilson (Bob Dishy), who is a hard-charging young go-getter whose style doesn't match well with his superior. Columbo finds it suspicious that Jarvis lacked a sense of urgency obtaining the ransom money, that the kidnappers had no difficulty catching up to Tony's high-performance Jaguar, and that the exchange was caught in an easy to film location.

The first notable Recycled Script on Columbo, which had first used the whole fake kidnapping story as the idea for the second pilot film, "Ransom for a Dead Man".

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Tropes:

• All Love Is Unrequited: Gloria seems to have been interested in Tony, who regularly visited her in order to talk about Cathy's infidelity and how much it bothered him. As she tells Columbo, she'd never met a man before who only wanted to talk with her.
• Always Murder: The case starts out not as a murder, but as a kidnapping staged by the Goodland men. Once the plan succeeds roughly halfway into the episode, Jarvis kills his nephew to take all the money for himself.
• And Starring: Bradford Dillman gets the "Special Guest Star" credit.
• Artistic License – Law: For about half of the episode, Columbo is investigating a kidnapping rather than a confirmed homicide.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: While Gloria is alone with Jarvis, she tells him about Columbo's theory and says she thinks she knows who the killer is. Jarvis rhetorically asks who, while reaching for a weapon to kill Gloria, and Gloria says, "His wife." This causes Jarvis to freeze, as he realizes that this isn't a blackmail attempt, and Gloria doesn't suspect him.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Averted with Cathy, who is treated respectfully.
  • Downplayed with Gloria, whose biggest crime is a dislike for the police and a desire to get $30,000.
• Briefcase Full of Money: Really, how else will you carry a $300,000 ransom around?
• Chekhov's Gun: Jarvis says that he once shot at a prowler in the greenhouse, hitting "nothing but dirt." This is how Columbo gets him, using the metal detector (also previously seen) to find that third bullet in the greenhouse, and match it to the other two.
• Cousin Oliver: The presence of Sgt. Wilson was due to NBC pressuring creators Richard Levinson and William Link to give Columbo a partner. It didn't take, as Sgt. Wilson would make only one more appearance, three seasons later.
• Death Glare:
  • Jarvis is good at these. When Sgt. Wilson arrests him, he only manages to get out "You have the right—", before a Death Glare from Jarvis cuts him off and they leave in silence.
  • When Cathy shoots one of her own at Jarvis after Jarvis seems reluctant about handing over the ransom, Jarvis says "There's no use glaring at me like that. Blood is thicker than martinis."
• Emasculated Cuckold: Cathy and Tony are in an open marriage, at least as far as Cathy's concerned. In truth, Tony hates the idea but Cannot Spit It Out, preferring to pay her boyfriend off to go away rather than confront her about it. Jarvis sees Tony as pathetic because of this and finds it disgusting.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Columbo produces a third bullet fired from the same gun and tells Jarvis he simply can't see how Jarvis is gonna explain it. Jarvis starts to protest until it dawns on him where Columbo found that third bullet.
• Every Man Has His Price: Cathy's boyfriend's price for leaving her happens to be $50,000. She's not very happy to learn about this from Columbo.
• Evil Uncle: Not only is Jarvis the prime mover in his and Tony's plan to stage a kidnapping, he also never planned to share the dough...
• Failed a Spot Check: Jarvis's pistol used in the phony kidnapping and to kill his nephew had a bullet from it lying around in his Greenhouse. He gets himself caught due to not bothering to remove it and telling Columbo about an intruder he fired upon.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Cathy seems to believe other people feel this way about her having a lover, to the point of preemptively daring them to disapprove of her.
• Frame-Up: Upon learning from Gloria that Tony had given Cathy a .32 pistol, the kind he himself had used to kill Tony, Jarvis swaps her gun for the murder weapon and calls Wilson to give him the "clean" gun and hint that Cathy might have the murder weapon in her house.
• He Knows Too Much: Narrowly averted. Gloria (Tony's secretary) shows up to Jarvis's greenhouse to tell him her theory of there being a second handgun that was used in Tony's murder, one that was given to the murderer by Tony himself. She's right on the money, so much that Jarvis quietly opens a drawer to pull out his gun to in an attempt to permanently silence Gloria - until she says that the second handgun is owned by Cathy. Jarvis puts the gun away, deciding to spare Gloria, as she has inadvertently given him someone to frame for Tony's murder.
• Henpecked Husband: Cathy might care about Tony, but the fact that he'd rather pay the other man to leave rather than confront Cathy about him probably says quite a bit.
• Inspector Lestrade: Sgt. Wilson, Columbo's temporary partner, who, while always respectful, clearly has his doubts about Columbo's methods. Wilson gets everything completely wrong, falling for Jarvis's frame job and moving to arrest Cathy before Columbo reveals the truth.
• Jerkass: Some Columbo episodes have a Sympathetic Murderer the audience can identify with and understand. It's little wonder that Jarvis likes orchids so much, since they can't tell him what they think of him.
• Mistaken for Cheating: Cathy believes that both she and Tony are both sleeping with other people, but he's faithful.
• No Warrant? No Problem!: When Columbo finds the 3rd bullet, he has no search warrant. It would be inadmissable as evidence in court against Jarvis.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Jarvis takes every opportunity he can to be nasty to his niece-in-law Cathy, and she's clearly well sick of having to deal with him.
• Offing the Annoyance: While most Columbo villains have a clear motive, Jarvis apparently kills his nephew simply because he couldn't stand him and what he sees as him later squandering his cash for his wife.
• Pet the Dog: Whether to alleviate Cathy's paranoia or not, Columbo goes out of his way to sincerely tell her that he admires that whatever her values, she's not a hypocrite, and quietly warns her that Ken isn't as trustworthy as she might hope.
• Punk in the Trunk: After Jarvis makes the fake ransom drop and drives around the curve, Tony scrambles over the hill to the other side and winds up hiding in Jarvis's trunk.
• Red Herring: Columbo's suspicions are roused by the "awfully obvious" clues left around, like the three dinner plates at the hideout where Tony's body was found.
• Sexy Secretary: Gloria, Tony's receptionist, who as it happens was not his mistress. No, he pretended that she was to Cathy while really he'd go over to Gloria's and do nothing but moan about how his wife was cheating on him.
• Stocking Mask: How Tony disguises himself as his own kidnapper, allowing Jarvis to claim he can't identify the culprit.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: She may be sleeping with someone else, but Cathy still cares about Tony, and comes off a lot nicer than Jarvis. Subverted with Tony, whose relationship with Gloria turns out to be completely platonic; him spending time with her was done to try and get Cathy jealous to stop her cheating, with the bonus of Gloria being willing to listen to his problems and sympathizing with him.
• Two-Act Structure: Usually the victim in Columbo is offed in the first third of the episode. In this one Jarvis doesn't kill Tony until halfway through.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Gloria's suspicion that Cathy and Tony arranged his fake kidnapping and that she killed him inspires Jarvis to try and frame her.
• Wham Line:
  • "No, dear nephew. The time has come for me to explain to you phase three."
  • "Third bullet. Also a .32 caliber, and also proven by ballistics to have been fired by the same weapon that fired the first two bullets."
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Jarvis feels disgusted at the prospect of Tony squandering his share of the ransom money on appeasing his wife and decides to kill him after Tony's role in the phony ransom scheme is finished.

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