Jessica becomes involved in a long-standing feud between former comic duo Mack and Murray when the two are forced together by the engagement of their children, Kip and Corrie. Initially, the pair seem to restrain their hostility to tongue-lashing, but soon Murray staggers out of the bathroom with a back injury, claiming he was attacked by an assailant wearing red, the color of Mack's bathrobe. Soon, Jessica has an actual murder in addition to a case of injury on her hands when agent Phil Rinker turns up hung from a rafter in the storeroom, in a suspiciously set up case of apparent suicide. Can Jessica solve the case and settle the hostility between the families?
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: The "attack" on Murray turns out to have been one of these. He couldn't stand the idea of Corrie marrying Kip and hoped to drive a wedge between her and her future in-laws by framing Mack for a murder attempt. After Phil's murder, he wanted to confess, but he was afraid he'd lose his daughter over it.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Jessica points out that the only way Murray would have been unable to see his assailant would have been if he had had his head down and his eyes closed. Murray agrees and says his eyes were closed. Then Jessica brings up his statement that he saw a flash of red, further destroying his credibility.
- Embezzlement: The motive behind Phil's murder. He discovered Farley had been stealing from Mack and Murray for years, decades even, and demanded he come clean to the duo. Farley... decided he'd rather not.
- Hypochondriac: Mack calls Murray a hypochondriac during their routine which opens the episode, and it seems to have some bearing in reality given that Murray looks in a medical encyclopedia as Jessica and the engaged couple arrive and announces he has a few months to live at best.
- "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Norma turns her face away when she comes down after Jessica and sees Phil's body.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Jessica fiddles with a seemingly burnt out bulb and Presston goes downstairs into the store room and finds a new bulb from the package behind the sugar. Immediately, Jessica accuses him of Phil Rinker's murder. He had earlier professed ignorance about the store room, so how could he have known where the light bulbs in the store room were unless he had actually been down there?
- Never Suicide: It looks as if Phil Rinker hung himself. This is Murder, She Wrote, so unsurprisingly, he didn't.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Rinker found out about Pressman's embezzling and demanded he tell Mack and Murray. Pressman hung him from the rafters to keep him from talking.
- Police Are Useless: Acting Police Chief Wylie Ledbetter is the number two man in a police department of two, in charge because the chief is off getting elective surgery. He obviously has no experience with crime scene procedure and is has to be prodded by Jessica into making any kind of investigation.
- Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Phil Rinker goes missing after Murray gets stabbed in the shoulder, and before most of the guests can locate him again, he turns up hanged in the store room.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Similar to Romeo and Juliet, Kip and Corrie come from fathers who have been feuding with one another for decades. The two are determined not to let it get in the way, but the suspicions raised by the case do tear at the relationship a little before they try to put it aside once more.
- Wacky Marriage Proposal: Murray "proposes" to his girlfriend Norma Lewis on live television by announcing to Mack that he's met a girl who wants him to take her on a honeymoon.
- Young Love Versus Old Hate: Mack and Murray used to work together as a comedy duo before something drove them apart (implied to relate at least partially to money disappearing) and caused them to hate each other. Naturally, their children, Kip and Corrie, fall in love, forcing them to see one another again at the engagement party. They ultimately hash things out and return to their old partnership.
