Recap / Columbo S 09 E 02

Episode: Season 9, Episode 2
Title:"Columbo Cries Wolf"
Directed by: Daryl Duke
Written by: William Read Woodfield
Air Date: January 20, 1990
Previous: Murder, a Self-Portrait
Next: Agenda for Murder
Guest Starring: Ian Buchanan, Rebecca Staab, Deidre Hall, Bruce Kirby

"Columbo Cries Wolf" is the second episode of the ninth season of Columbo.

Sean Brantley (Ian Buchanan) is the owner of Bachelor's World, a Playboy-esque men's magazine. Sean lives in a lavish mansion and cavorts with scads of scantily clad "Nymphs". However, he does not have full ownership of his magazine. In fact, 51% controlling interest in the magazine is owned by Sean's longtime lover and business partner, Dian Hunter (Deidre Hall). As it turns out, Dian has had enough of Sean bedding babe after babe while professing to love her. She is set on selling her stake in the magazine to Sir Harry Matthews, a British publishing magnate. Sir Harry will, when he buys the magazine, close the mansion and turn Sean and the Nymphs out, ending his sybaritic lifestyle.

Dian flies off to London to make the deal...and never shows up. Scotland Yard calls Los Angeles for help in the investigation, and Lt. Columbo is on the case. Despite airport security footage that appears to show Dian going through security and getting on the plane, Columbo becomes convinced that she was murdered in Los Angeles and the woman on the plane was an impostor. There's only one problem, though: he can't find Dian's body.

---

Tropes:

• Always Gets His Man: As per usual, despite the trouble he has in this episode, Columbo does bring Sean to justice.
• And Starring: Diedre Hall of Days of Our Lives fame gets "Special Guest Star" credit.
• Artistic License – Law: One of many episodes dating back to the original 1970s run of the show where Columbo is investigating a case before a murder has been established. It's handwaved as Columbo being asked to look into Dian's activities in Los Angeles by Superintendent Durk.
• Asshole Victim: Towards the second act of the story, Dian becomes this. When she was (still) alive, she didn't do Columbo any kindness. Quite the opposite, she duped him into looking like the proverbial "boy who cried wolf" just for a publicity stunt, rubs it in his face, and at the end of the day, tells Sean she's still selling the company to spite him for cheating. If Columbo wasn't solving her murder simply out of civic duty and dedication to his job, it would be a mystery why he was solving her murder at all.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Repeated shots of the workmen installing a new shower in Dian’s bedroom. The episode ends with Columbo finding Dian's body walled up behind the shower tiles.
  • The discussion of how Dian and Sean both wear beepers, which must have looked really impressive in 1990, in the form of bracelets. Columbo finds Dian's corpse in the end by calling her number and following the sound of the beeps to her body.
• Continuity Nod: Columbo is on the case because, after Dian was reported missing in London, he was asked to investigate her life in L.A. by Superintendent Durk of New Scotland Yard—that is, Bernard Fox's character in Season 2 episode "Dagger of the Mind".
• Constructive Body Disposal: After Sean kills Dian for real, he hides her body behind a wall in the bathroom undergoing renovations.
• Crying Wolf: What the title refers to. Sean misleads Columbo into investigating a crime that he didn't commit, so when the crime really happens, Columbo cannot do what he would do at the moment, searching through the whole house and garden, so he has to find another way.
• Detective Patsy: Sean and Dian played Columbo like a fiddle to have him investigate Dian's "murder" and generate free publicity for Bachelor's World. It really helps them that they made sure to leave behind enough false clues to make the fake crime believable. If Columbo didn’t find things like the shell casing or the hairs they planted, then he would have gotten wise to it eventually. They played their hand well seeing that once the shell casing was found and matched to Sean’s gun, they knew Columbo would have to search the limo and then the mansion. To say the lieutenant is not horribly thrilled upon finding this out would be an understatement.
• Fake Mystery: In a huge twist, the murder of Dian was all a clever hoax by her and Sean, with false clues and false leads... initially. Things get real once Sean realizes Dian is selling off the magazine anyway.
• Fanservice Extra: It's the Playboy Mansion, so, lots of swimsuit-clad women strolling around.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: Downplayed as technically this is still a Reverse Whodunnit but with the murder happening extremely late and the solution being exceptionally short. This is the only episode where the eventual killer misleads Columbo into investigating a crime that hasn't happened (yet).
• Handsome Lech: Sean, the dashing owner of Bachelor's World who constantly hangs around and flirts with his Nymphs, who have slavish devotion to him. This reputation is partially what (seemingly) encourages Dian to sell off the share of the magazine in spite, and allows Sean to use Tina as an accomplice for Dian's (fake) murder.
• Hard-Work Montage: An amusing montage of Columbo and the rest of the LAPD tearing up Sean's estate looking for Dian's body. Columbo crawls up on the roof to check the chimney; he puts on hip waders to inspect the koi pond.
• Imagine Spot: Three separate scenes have Columbo speculating on how the murder went down—once that the murderer was hiding behind the dumpster and shot Dian from outside, once that the murderer was hiding inside the limo under a seat, and finally the truth, that Dian fired the shot herself as part of the scheme.
• Just One Little Mistake: If he had simply taken the beeper off of Dian's body when he killed her, Sean might've avoided getting caught. Especially seeing the city would not let any investigator search the mansion again.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Sean and Dian make Columbo look like a fool and all but sully his reputation, for the sake of a publicity stunt. Towards the ending, each of the two get their due for their machinations. Dian is actually murdered by her lover, and Sean is caught for real by Columbo.
• Majority-Share Dictator: Dian notes that her 51% share gives her control of the magazine, and that after she sells, Sir Harry will control the magazine and Sean and the Nymphs will be out on the street.
• Manipulative Bastard: Say what you want, but Sean Brantley is a good manipulator. Not only he pulled off a fake murder mystery that even fooled Columbo, no, he even left Dian completely unaware that he pulled off the stunt to have a good opportunity to kill her later. What’s better is that he knew the massive stink he raised and the included media circus would make the city and the police department just not be willing to do a proper investigation the second time so he could easily get away with it, if Columbo hadn’t outsmarted him.
• Neck Snap: How Sean kills Dian for real after she tells him she's really going to sell the magazine to Sir Harry. In the true spirit of this trope, he makes it look about as difficult as twisting off a bottle cap.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Sean Bradley is Hugh Hefner. He owns a nudie magazine and he lives in a gigantic mansion along with scads of models. Additionally, he is engaged to be married to one of those models—a couple of years before this episode aired, famous bachelor Hugh Hefner married one of his Playmates, Kimberly Conrad.
  • Sir Harry Matthews is clearly a stand in for Rupert Murdoch.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: A trope found in every single episode of this series, of course, but a Discussed Trope in this one, as Sean figures out Columbo pretty quickly.
  Sean: It's all an act with you, isn't it? You're not the naive detective you pretend to be.
• Oddball in the Series: A rare example of a Columbo where we didn't see the murder planned and carried out. And an even rarer example of a Columbo where there was no murder—not until the third act, anyway, when Sean kills Dian with 20 minutes left.
• Oh, Crap!: Many, many murderers did this during the run of Columbo but this is probably the only time Columbo did it, as he gapes at the sight of Dian coming home very much alive. The ear-to-ear grin Sean is wearing behind him only rubs it in.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Another Oddball in the Series moment. Columbo is following Tina around doing his usual Just One More Thing schtick. He finds her again and delivers his usual "I'm sorry to bother you, miss," line, only for Tina to spit back at him, "If you're sorry, why don't you stop doing it?" After a Beat Columbo says, "You know, I think I will." He promptly has her handcuffed and arrested.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Ian Buchanan plays Sean with an English accent, but his natural Scottish accent slips through when delivering particularly emotional lines (or when saying the word "murder").
• Playboy Parody: "Bachelor's World" is obviously "Playboy". It's a men's magazine featuring monthly pictorials of naked ladies, its owner lives in a huge mansion along with many of those naked ladies, and the magazine isn't actually that profitable because the owner's lavish lifestyle is so expensive (something that was true of Hefner back in the day).
• The Reveal: Dian isn't dead! The "murder" was all a publicity stunt cooked up by Sean and Dian to goose circulation of the magazine. Dian fired the gunshot herself, wrapped herself up in a bunch of clothes that would look like a disguise, and even put cream in her coffee in front of a security camera to make Columbo think the woman on the video was an impostor.
• Smug Smiler: Sean Brantley and those shit-eating grins he's pulling throughout the episode, especially when Dian reveals the ruse. If ever there was a smile you wanted to punch off of someone's face...
• Title Drop: From Columbo, seething but holding back his temper, after finding out that Sean and Dian conspired to fool him.
  Columbo: You've put me in the position of the little boy who cried wolf.
• Toplessness from the Back: From that month's Nymph, Tina (Rebecca Staab), as Sean is photographing her, and afterwards as he's kissing her.
• Tranquil Fury: After Columbo realizes that he's been duped by Sean and Dian into investigating a false murder (humiliating him in the process), he smiles at Sean and congratulates him by lifting his champagne glass as though he were proposing a toast...and spills the drink at Sean's feet.