Grady calls Jessica from New York, tempting her into a visit with the offer of meeting former film star Rita Bristol, who has taken a part in a Broadway production. But no sooner has Jessica arrived than Rita's daughter Patti, the star of the musical, ends up in the hospital due to a strange mugging. It's up to Jessica to find who wanted to dim Patti's star.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Rita's struggles with drinking prematurely destroyed her career. She considers falling off the wagon after Patti is shot and left comatose, but doesn't.
- Break Them by Talking: Jessica gets Barry to snap and confess by talking to him the way Rita did, down to a Brief Accent Imitation.
- Cain and Abel: Barry had an out-of-work actor stage a "mugging" on his sister out of jealousy at how much he felt their mother emphasized her and her accomplishments over him. This may have been all in his head, given that Rita sounds shocked at her son's statement about feeling that she didn't love him as much as Patti.
- Do Wrong, Right: Taki notes that the mugger was a total amateur since he demanded money from Patti then immediately shot her before she could hand it over. A pro wouldn't want to waste time after the loud gunshot picking up valuables when he could be escaping the scene.
- Driven to Suicide: Barry tries to kill off his mother and make it look like this.
- Fair-Weather Friend: Rita comments about how losing one's fame tells a person a lot about their friends.
- Faking the Dead: Jessica fakes Rita Bristol's death to get the murderer to give himself away.
- Nepotism: Rita notes snidely that what used to be Patti's part somehow expanded greatly after Faber's girlfriend replaced her. Later, Faber tells Barry that he and Patti only got anywhere by riding on their mother's coattails, which earns him a sock to the face.
- Never Suicide: Jessica discovers Rita, apparently drunk, lying on the floor next to the oven. However, she correctly deduces that Rita didn't try to kill herself; rather, the killer wanted the murder to look like suicide.
- Parental Favoritism: Barry thinks Rita favors Patti over him. Judging from the way she talks to them, and how she gushes about Patti's potential versus Barry's constant failures, it would seem so.
- Red Herring:
- When the director of the play gets someone else in to replace Patti, the pair of them have clearly been planning this for weeks. He didn't arrange Patti's shooting, though he was trying to force her to quit by being incredibly hard on her.
- Grady discovers the play's financier has been overselling shares, but this has no connection to the murder whatsoever.
- Renaissance Man: Manny Farkus is noted to be a triple threat; an actor, a playwright, and a director—and he was terrible at all of them. Not a very good shot, either.
- Slipping a Mickey: Barry drugs his mother's coffee, then forces alcohol and barbituates into her system before turning on the gas.
- The Show Must Go On: Si Parrish is pushing really hard to get Always April made, despite its myriad issues—because he oversold shares by half and needs it to flop so he can swipe the extra 50%. If it doesn't open, he has to return money he doesn't have to the investors.
- Starving Artist: Manny Farkus's landlady apparently runs some sort of boarding-house-cum-theater for struggling actors, where Manny had some friends. The landlady seems to glamorize starving artists, too, since she thought Manny's efforts to make money were selling out.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: Rita's glory days as a film star were apparently back in the days of black and white films. The play is an opportunity for her to re-enter the world of show biz, though she seems more interested in making sure it's a good entrance for her daughter Patti.
