Charlie investigates Vicky Harrison, the host of Harrison Media's local morning show Rise & Shine after her media mogul husband Chris is suddenly found dead.
Tropes:
- Beleaguered Assistant:
- A year prior, Sam was promised by Chris the role of lead host until the latter met and instead gave the job to Vicky. Insisting that he was the reason Rise & Shine’s ratings remained stable over the last decade, Sam threatened to quit unless he was paid the same as what lead host does, with Chris agreeing to his demands. However, when Chris died before sending a copy of Sam’s revised contract to the latter’s agent, Sam broke into his office to get it himself and the original copy out of fear that Tad would destroy the new one if he got his hands on it.
- Beth is also this. After Chris dumped her for Vicky, he promoted her to associate producer, which basically meant she was stuck performing menial tasks for them. It ended up being so humiliating that it contributed to Beth eventually deciding to kill Chris.
- Black Widow: What Vicky has been accused of being in regards to her marriage with Chris and her previous husbands, none of which never lasted more than a year. Her first husband Tom Boudreaux ended in him dying in a car accident with Vicky, who was the one driving, surviving. Her second husband was a building engineer named Jason Wyatt, who fell to his death while constructing a building that never came to be, with his fall being deemed an apparent accident. While the first was deemed a legitimate accident, the second was declared a death under suspicious circumstances but no charges were laid for either with Vicky collecting on both of her late husbands’ life insurances. Now Vicky is the number one suspect in the murder of her third husband Chris, even though she insists that she married all of them for love and not their money. She’s telling the truth, even in regards to the conspiracy relating to Jason’s suicide.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: While watching the video of Rex interrupting a taping of Rise & Shine to talk to Sam Bronstein about why he later broke into the crime scene, some of the comments are "Cutest police dog ever!", "He can arrest me at any time!" and "If only cops were that smart". Jesse opts to skip over the last one.
- Closed Circle: The circle of suspects in Chris’s murder includes his wife and host of Rise & Shine Vicky, his son Tad, Vicky’s co-host Sam Bronstein, and associate producer Beth Taylor.
- Everybody Knew Already: All of the suspects know of Vicky’s past through Tad via Mason’s findings, which gives all of them respective motives for killing Chris.
- Extremely Protective Child: Tad Harrison, Chris’s son who is very protective of his father over people he deems are only getting close to him to steal his fortune. The main target of Tad’s accusations being Chris’ latest wife Vicky despite her saying otherwise.
- Frame-Up: Vicky is accused of being the one who murdered Chris despite her claiming that she had no interest in her husband’s fortune, as well as the one who tried to kill Mason when the tire iron used to knock him out is found in her car alongside peanut oil. However, because of her insisting that she truly loved Chris and a handful of people being aware of Vicky’s past, Charlie suspects that someone may have actually framed her. He’s right, Beth was the one to frame her by setting up the murder so that Chris’s death would be under suspicious circumstances like Vicky’s previous husbands.
- Gold Digger: What Tad accuses Vicky of being despite her saying otherwise. Jason Wyatt’s sister Nora also accused Vicky of being this due to their interactions with each other, but never thought she would be capable of something like murder (although this comment was just a slip-up hinting to what actually happened between Vicky and Jason). It’s actually Beth who’s the gold digger, her formerly being Chris’s girlfriend until he dumped her for Vicky. Upon learning of Vicky’s past, Beth plotted to murder Chris and frame her for it then started dating Tad to get her hands on his half of the inheritance. After finding out about it, Tad makes a public statement saying he was misled and is making Vicky the new CEO of Harrison Media.Charlie: If you ever have a chance to do this again, Beth, make sure you date for the right reason: love.
- He Knows Too Much: Almost, anyway. During his investigating Mason accidentally took Beth’s laptop thinking it was Vicky’s which contained information pointing to Beth as Chris’s killer, although Mason was unaware of this and just planning to use what was on it to blackmail Chris. When Beth found out via the business card Mason left behind on Chris’s desk she broke into the PI’s office and knocked him out trying to kill him, unaware that Mason survived the blow to the head she gave him.
- I Warned You: Tad’s reaction upon finding out Chris was murdered, having warned his father many times that Vicky was dangerous.
- Inheritance Murder: What Tad insists his father’s death to have been, blaming Vicky for it due to her having allegedly rushed him into a wedding to get her hands on his fortune. However, upon reviewing Chris’s will, Charlie points out that in the event of his father's death Tad would inherited as much as what Vicky would and had as much of an opportunity to do the deed, only for Tad to claim that he never once had the idea of killing his own father and has only ever been trying to keep him safe.
- Insurance Fraud: The real circumstances of Jason’s death. After the construction of the building he was working on fell through and lost everything, he decided to commit suicide and made it look like an accident so Vicky could collect on his life insurance, giving it to Nora to help her with her son’s medical expenses, with Nora promising not to tell anyone. After the truth gets out, Vicky declares that what happened was a serious crime and that she is willing to take responsibility for it.
- Plot Allergy: Chris was severely allergic to peanuts, his death being from anaphylactic shock brought on by airborne peanut oil from an oil dispenser hidden in the vent near his office set to go off the time Rise & Shine starts with his EpiPen stolen from his desk.
- Private Investigator: David Mason, a private investigator hired by Tad to look into Vicky’s past. However, he also has a reputation of blackmailing his clients or people close to them with whatever dirt he comes across, with his latest attempt having gotten him knocked out and almost killed by an unknown assailant. During his investigation he found Beth’s computer and the racy photos of her and Chris on it and tried to blackmail Chris by threatening to show them to either Tad or Vicky. That is until Beth found out what Mason had done and almost killed him trying to get her computer back.
- The Starscream: Upon learning of Vicky’s past, Sam went to Tad trying to get her fired for violating her morals clause so he could become lead host. While Vicky is appalled at him for sinking low enough to do something like that, Sam points out that Chris did initially promise him the job before she came along.
- Stating the Simple Solution: After Chris’s death is revealed to be caused by peanut oil from an oil dispenser hidden in the vent near his office set to go off at the time Rise & Shine starts, Donovan questions why the killer would resort to such a convoluted method when it would be easier to just do something like spike Chris’s coffee. Charlie theorizes that it is likely that the killer wanted Chris to die at a certain time to establish an alibi.
- Trauma Conga Line: Prior to his death, Jason Wyatt was in the middle of constructing a new building for the city, only to realize too late that the land he had been building on, which was the site of a former gas station, was contaminated due to improper removal of the fuel tanks and was too expensive to clean up. Even worse was that Jason was deep in debt and risked everything on the project, leading to him becoming heavy on antidepressants and later fell to his death in an accident. Except the accident was actually a suicide so Nora could get the money from his life insurance for her son’s treatments.
