Written by: Danna Doyle & Debbie Smith
Directed by: Walter Grauman
While restoring her house in Cabot Cove, Jessica worries that her contractor is preoccupied by the remodeling of another house until the project is put on hold when the client is found murdered.
Tropes:
- Actually Not a Vampire: Lawrence Baker is an eccentric who paid cash for a large Victorian house, has no mirrors in the house, and is only ever seen outside in the evening. He is killed by having a stake driven through his heart. His aversion to sunlight and mirrors turns out to be a case of genetic photophobia, and the killer chose a stake through the heart as a murder method to take advantage of the fact that several locals suspected him of being a vampire. The episode does, however, end with an "or was he?" moment when Jessica finds a picture of Borbey's ancestor who happens to look exactly like him.
- Agent Scully: Dr. Seth Hazlitt absolutely refuses to believe the possibility of vampires, in contrast with Dr. Howard Sorenson's more Agent Mulder tendency. He also provides the explanation of photophobia for Lawrence Baker's "vampiric" qualities. Jessica and Sheriff Metzger are more middle ground.
- Ambiguous Ending: Was Lawrence Baker an actual vampire and was actually William Borbey in disguise? The ending leaves it up to the viewer's imagination.
- Body in a Breadbox: The reason why Lawrence Baker was murdered by Charles Weatherly and why he was adamant to first try to buy the Borbey house and then to be the contractor for Lawrence Baker was because Charles Weatherly had previously murdered Laurel Perrin and hid her corpse inside the wall.
- Constructive Body Disposal: Lawrence Baker is killed by the contractor he hired to do renovations. Why? The house was previously renovated by that same contractor, who had a fight with his fiancée during said renovation, accidentally killed her and hid her body within the walls of the house. As the walls were actually added and not part of the original plans, Lawrence kept on insisting that the walls be removed, which is what the contractor wanted to avoid happening...at least unless he could retrieve Laurel's body first.
- Identical Grandson: When they check out an album of what William Borbey looked like, he appeared identical to Lawrence Baker (since they're the same actor) only with facial hair, and attire from the 1800s.
- Raised Hand of Survival: In the beginning of the episode, two teenagers were making out in the Cabot Cove cemetery when Dr. Sorenson emerges from a grave hand-first, scaring them off.
- Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: One of the episode's subplots involves Dave Perrin looking for his sister, Laurel, who disappeared some time ago. Sheriff Metzger and his fiancée are both dubious about the situation, but he insists he needs to find her or find out what happened. Jessica realizes partway through the episode that Laurel was killed the day she disappeared and has been entombed in the Borbey house all this time.
- Skepticism Failure: Sheriff Metzger suffers from one as the episode progresses. Like Dr. Hazlitt, he initially did not believe Baker was a vampire, but by the episode's end, he was entertaining the plausibility.
- Wooden Stake: The method with which Lawrence Baker was killed supposedly so that the visiting Vampire Lore Ditzy Genius Dr. Howard Sorenson would be blamed.
