Exit, Pursued By A Bear
Exit, Pursued By A Bear
- The Winter's Tale, Act III, Scene 3
Written by: Jeff Povey
Directed by: Ian Barber
Original Air Date: March 5, 2018
The star of an upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet tells Shakespeare & Hathaway she is receiving death threats.
This episode provides examples of:
- Attention Whore: Sally; after she is almost killed by the sister of the actress who she muscled out of her last soap opera (thus destroying her career and ultimately her sanity), Sally begins an "if I had it to do over again..." speech, which Frank brusquely cuts off, telling her she only cares about the spotlight, and always has.
- Character Name Alias: Sally receives a threatening teddy bear (It Makes Sense in Context). Tracking down the courier service who delivered it, Frank says it was sent by a Mr. Baloo. DI Marlowe mutters about how stupid you would have to be not to pick that as a fake name.
- Deus ex Machina: In-Universe. Sally's rewrite of Romeo and Juliet offers no explanation for how her Juliet miraculously survives drinking the poison, other than, "she's a woman, and too important to die."
- The Diva: Sally.
- Exit, Pursued by a Bear: Sally suborned Roman, the producer of the soap she was appearing in, into altering the script to kill off her rival character instead of hers.
- Explaining the Soap: Lu starts watching episodes of an old soap called Ward 9 as background to Sally's career. She starts showing Frank relevant episodes and explaining the plot. He is initially dismissive but quickly gets hooked.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Sally is almost killed by the vengeful sister of the actress whose career she destroyed. The facts that the sister was attached to the production as a seamstress and Sally was treating her like dirt didn't help.
- Horrible Hollywood: Sally manipulated the producer of the soap opera she was guest-starring on to kill off the main actress's character and have Sally replace her as the star. The replaced actress's career never recovered, she suffered a mental breakdown and had to be looked after by her sister.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Titles: "Exit, pursued by a bear" is a stage direction from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and has been interpreted to mean:
- A means of disposing of a villain or rival character through a proxy, while allowing the hero's hands to remain clean (see the trope page here), which is how Sally got her rival actress removed from the soap opera she was starring in, and prevented her own character from being killed off.
- Any stage direction that is wildly improbable and difficult to stage in a theatrical setting, which is an apt description for Sally's convoluted rewrite of Romeo and Juliet.
- Large Ham: Sally.
- Nice to the Waiter: Sally treats everyone around her like hired help, including the detectives who she's hired to protect her.
- Not Me This Time: Sally's understudy admits to sending the death threats, but never tried to actually murder her.
- Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon: Someone laces the poison chalice Juliet is meant to drink from with actual poison in an attempt to kill Sally.
- Pain to the Ass: Frank is interviewing a suspect when he sits down heavily on a pin cushion and jumps immediately to his feet. The pincushion later turns out to be a vital clue in solving the mystery.
- The Prima Donna: Sally.
- A Rare Sentence: Lu suggests that the crime could be the work of "aggressive Shakespeare traditionalists, which isn't something you say very often".
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: After the would-be killer is caught, Sally begins an impassioned speech about, if she had known what her actions would lead to... Frank cuts her off, saying she'd have done exactly the same thing.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Sally is not offended as much as baffled that Sebastian is the only person in the detectives' office who knows who she is.
- Straw Feminist: Sally has rewritten Romeo and Juliet to allow Juliet to survive, declaring that her life is much too valuable to kill herself over any man. It's a part easy for Sally to play, but which she'd never allow any other woman to have.
- Undercover as Lovers: Trying to gain entry to a suspect's hotel room, Frank and Lu pretend to be lovers on an illicit tryst, who've lost their room key.
