Recap / Columbo S 03 E 01

Episode: Season 3, Episode 1
Title:"Lovely but Lethal"
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Written by: Jackson Gillis (teleplay), Myrna Bercovici (story)
Air Date: September 23, 1973
Previous: Double Shock
Next: Any Old Port in the Storm
Guest Starring: Vera Miles, Vincent Price, Martin Sheen, Bruce Kirby

"Lovely but Lethal" is the first episode of the third season of Columbo.

Viveca Scott (Vera Miles) is the owner of Beauty Mark, a high-end cosmetics company. Beauty Mark has been struggling; sales are down, and Viveca is trying to fend off a takeover from corporate rival David Lang (Vincent Price). Viveca is pinning her hopes on a new wrinkle removal cream that her company has developed. But when she finds out that her chemist, Karl Lessing (Martin Sheen), is going to betray her and sell the compound to Lang, she beats him to death with his microscope. Viveca attempts to throw suspicion on Lang, but certain clues, like a scribbled note written in eyebrow pencil, point Lt. Columbo her way. There's also the matter of Shirley, Viveca's spy inside Lang's company, who knows a lot of secrets and also guesses what really happened to Karl.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Murder: Viveca doesn't set out to kill Karl, but does so in a rage when he plans to sell his formula to her rival. It doesn't help that Karl gets her to agree to have a romantic relationship with him and make him a partner in her business, then says he just wanted to see how far she would go to try to manipulate him before he turned her down.
• The Alcoholic: Murchison, who shakes too badly to take a skin sample and has to return to his office to down some whiskey. Viveca says the only place he works is the bar. Later he's at her fat farm trying to get sober.
• Ambiguously Gay: Hints of an attraction Shirley has for Viveca, like when they meet in secret and Shirley takes Viveca's hand and says "We haven't been seen together." Viveca is obviously only interested in what Shirley can get her from Lang's office.
• And Starring: Vincent Price gets the "Special Guest Star" credit.
• Blackmail Backfire: Shirley attempts to blackmail Viveca with her suspicions over Karl's murder, but Viveca just murders her as well.
• Bludgeoned to Death: Viveca kills Karl by clobbering his head with his microscope.
• Bullying a Dragon: Shirley rather stupidly threatens to tell what she knows unless Viveca makes her an executive. Viveca kills her (very deliberately this time, not like her spur-of-the-moment murder of Karl).
• Chalk Outline: Relatively rare for Columbo, but in this episode we see a tape outline on the carpet showing where Karl fell.
• Chekhov's Gun: Columbo and Viveca can both be seen scratching their hands repeatedly. This is how Columbo gets her—they both were exposed to poison ivy on the slide Karl was studying right before he was killed.
• Cure for Cancer: Karl has the secret formula to a cream that removes wrinkles in his head, and Viveca acquires the last existing jar of it from the murder site. Before she can take a sample to Murchison to analyze and try to reverse-engineer it, she sees our her window the police coming to search her home. Knowing that it will incriminate her and not sure if it actually contains the miracle cure or is instead the source of the poison ivy she and Columbo have suffered from, she throws it out her rear window where it shatters on rocks in the ocean below. Columbo reveals shortly afterwards that the poison ivy was contracted from a shattered microscope slide at the murder site, not from the jar. Meaning the jar did contain the miracle cure, and it's now lost forever.
• Dartboard of Hate: Karl, who it seems was one of Viveca's old conqests, has her picture affixed to a dartboard at his apartment. This and the eyeliner pencil scribblings on the magazine seems to be the clues that sets Columbo after her.
• Deadpan Snarker: Karl, who makes fun of Dr. Murchison's bumbling in the lab by saying "Just think of how many years Dr. Frankenstein must have spent on his research."
• Hypocritical Humor: Columbo gently admonishes Shirley for smoking so much, then asks for his cigar.
• Impairment Shot: For Shirley, as the poison in her cigarette takes effect while she's driving on a mountain road.
• The Mole: Shirley, Lang's secretary, is a spy for Viveca.
• Must Have Nicotine: Shierly, Lang's secretary, smokes like a chimney. Viveca exploits this to murder her.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Karl deliberately makes sure that he is the only one who knows the true formula of the miracle wrinkle cure Viveca's company has developed, and that he has the only remaining sample in a jar at his home, all part of his plan to sell it to Lang.
• Parenthetical Swearing: Columbo reveals that his brother-in-law inspired him to come up with the solution which implicated Viveca in Karl's murder. As the police are taking her away, she coldly asks him to send his in-law a message: "Something appropriate".
• Public Exposure: Viveca is able to temporarily stop Columbo from bothering her by going out into a group of (off-screen of course) nude sunbathers at Viveca's fat farm.
• Really Gets Around: Viveca, who after Columbo starts questioning her personal life spits back "I like young men, Lieutenant. Lots of them."
• Revealing Injury: Viveca is constantly scratching her hand—she has poison ivy. So does Columbo. And while poison ivy is not native to Southern California, Karl had some on the slide he was working with, on the microscope that Viveca bashed in his head with.
• Tainted Tobacco: Shirley implies that she knows that Viveca is responsible for Karl's death and tries to blackmail her into an executive job (and possibly a relationship) for silence; Viveca invites her out to her complex that afternoon to talk things over. At her complex, which serves as a spa and home to a weight loss program, Viveca poisons a cigarette. When Viveca and Shirley meet, Viveca throws away the cigarettes from Shirley's bag without her noticing and when Shirley starts looking for a smoke gives her the poisoned cigarette. Shirley smokes the poisoned cigarette and succumbs to the toxin while driving away: crashing her car and killing her.
• Technicolor Science: The typical flasks and beakers filled with colored liquids at Karl's house.
• Undisclosed Funds: Viveca writes an offer to Karl on the back of a magazine and hands it to him. He laughs at it, so she writes a second offer on the magazine. The magazine later becomes an important clue (it arrived that day, so the figures must have been written not long before he died,. and they are written with a black eyeliner pencil).
• Worst News Judgment Ever: "Girl Dies In Automobile Crash" is pushing it.

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