The acclaimed mystery writer Kay Ludlow has a new book coming soon in her acclaimed series following the exploits of the brilliant and beautiful Dr. Danielle Slade. The book is due on the coming Friday, and if the glowing praise from her agent Jim Rothman on the intro is anything to go by, Kay has her fifth bestseller hitting the shelves.
There's just one teensy flaw, however; that intro is also the only thing she's been able to write due to some severe Writer's Block, which isn't going to cut it for a book meant to be 350 pages long. Jim is none too pleased with this revelation or losing his commission, and demands that Kay get the book done, even if she needs to kill someone and see how the cops solve it to do so. Kay takes the advice to heart... sticking Jim in his.
As Kay follows Mark and Amanda (her consultant on the book series), she comes across twists turns, and even a copycat killing, all with the help of her own heroine, Danielle Slade herself.
"Write, She Murdered" displays symptoms of the following tropes:
- Adam Westing: The man himself appears as a washed up actor, most famous for his role as half of a crimefighting duo in the 1960's.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: As mentioned above, Jim Rothman suggests, likely sarcastically, that Kay kill someone and follow the cops to see how they solve the crime to get inspiration for her book. Even if he were serious, he definitely didn't mean him.
- Blackmail Backfire: Sid Abernathy croaks because he planned to reveal that multiple popular writers were using his services as a ghostwriter, including Archie Mullen.
- Copycat Killer: As it turns out, Archie decides to use Kay's recent murder of Jim as the basis for his own murder of Sid, before pinning both deaths on Kay.
- Denser and Wackier: With Victoria Rowell playing the hammy Dr. Slade as well as Amanda, with bits of her book shown and Slade often appearing/disappearing with a flash of light, this is definitely one of the goofier episodes of Diagnosis: Murder.
- Fake Alibi: Kay drops by Community General to see Amanda and Mark ostensibly, but really goes to establish an alibi for Jim's murder. She goes to the women's restroom and calls her phone in her purse from Jim's cell phone. When Mark answers it, Kay plays a recording of a voicemail from Jim and rubs her thumb over the receiver to give the effect of Jim calling on a bad connection. Mark eventually figures out the trick because Jim asked why Kay wasn't there, which is more something said to an answering machine than a person on the phone.
- Framing the Guilty Party: Archie seeing the murder of Jim Rothman gives him the idea to kill Sid in the same manner to pin both deaths on the same person.
- GPS Evidence: The jars used to hold the scorpions are from a brand of Greek olives only sold in a couple of stores in LA. This becomes a problem for Kay, as she enjoys this brand of olives herself.
- Here We Go Again!: The episode ends with Kay now in prison, still talking to Dr. Slade who is unimpressed by the novel... at least until Kay reveals that she's already working on the big sequel with the prison breakout...
- Hero of Another Story: One gets the sense that Kay and Dr. Slade have been bantering with each other for a while, before the events of the episode happened.
- Imaginary Friend: Dr. Danielle Slade, the heroine of Kay Ludlow's novels, is this for Kay, giving her advice and criticizing her recent life decisions while not being seen by anyone else.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Sgt. Mullen believes his books are solid and based in true police work, despite the fact that all he ever was on the force was the driver to the Chief of Police.
- Large Ham: Fittingly for a rather goofy set of novels, Victoria Rowell cranks the ham up to 11 when playing Danielle Slade.
- Morton's Fork: When Kay is arrested for Sid's murder, she laments that she's put herself between a rock and a hard place, since she's either doomed to be jailed for Sid's murder that she didn't commit if she stays quiet, or if she admits how she didn't kill Sid, be arrested for Jim's murder, which she did commit.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title puns on Murder, She Wrote.
- Shout-Out:
- In the opening scene, Jim compares Kay's career rise to Mary Higgins Clark, and when angry about Kay's lack of pages, says he "only" made her into the next Sue Grafton.
- Stylistic Suck: The bits of the new Danielle Slade novel Kay writes throughout the episode are woefully ridiculous, hammy to the max.
- Writer's Block: The start of this whole mess comes from Kay having it so bad with her latest book that she is only able to write one page.
- Writing About Your Crime: The episode centers around Kay Ludlow as she snaps under pressure from her belligerent publisher, kills him and uses the subsequent police investigation as inspiration for her next crime novel.
