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Jerusalem posted:I gotta say, the first episode of the proper seasons of Columbo had a surprisingly weak ending - Columbo's evidence really didn't seem strong enough on the face of it for the killer's resolve to crumble the way it did in the first two pilots, though I did enjoy the irony of the reveal that the stolen idea actually WAS the killer's original idea, and he had no idea his actually talented partner would like it enough to write it down. I always read that as Columbo going after his pride: he’d rather admit to murder than not get the credit for the idea. I expect prosecutors will either have a confession or go after him for the second murder in court, but the show’s never interested in that part of the story.
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Feb 27, 2023 16:00
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 19:26 |
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Jerusalem posted:While I really dig that idea, Columbo himself had no idea that the idea was actually the killer's rather than the victims. While he did taunt him about the second kill being so sloppy while the first was so well-planned, he didn't do so knowing that the first idea WAS the killer's and figuring he could goad him into admitting that. That reveal seemed to catch him by surprise as well. Clearly. But (and I guess this needs spoiling?): he's fishing for different bait. He's trying to provoke Franklin by saying that the first murder was clearly his partner's idea, and that he found the slip proving that it was, while comparing it to the sloppiness of the second murder. The goad is still Franklin's pride, but he's stuck either way: he tries to defend the second murder and gives himself away there, or he yields on the first murder and admits he couldn't even do that without his partner's help. The "twist" of this reveal is in Franklin's hands, registering the irony but also being forced by his pride to admit that the whole thing actually was his idea. That's comparable to the effect Columbo was going for, but he was hoping for it as it pertained to the second murder, not the first. Columbo knows how to goad Franklin, is the point, even if the goad ends up working differently than he expected. The way he's turning weak evidence into a strength is the same, but things turn in a surprising but fitting direction, especially given all the "tips" Franklin gave Columbo during the case about good detective work.
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Feb 28, 2023 02:22
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Commodore just wasn't a good episode. I say this as someone who went into it with an entirely open mind about it. Exactly two moments in the episode work: the twist in the middle and the very last shot. I think the episode does what it’s trying to do well, but most of the time it’s not clear why anyone would want it to do that. My three biggest non-spoiler memories of my first watch (and only, so far): wondering why they decided Columbo should suddenly be so handsy; thinking the yelling at the dock scene worked extremely well and was clearly a microcosm for the whole episode, but that it was still frustrating to experience; feeling at the end of the episode that it felt like it had taken an indeterminate but long amount of time to watch, maybe as much as three hours. If you love plays that alienate their own audiences, I expect you’d find more to love about Last Salute. Or if you think of the main purpose as being to troll Columbo fans.
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Mar 8, 2023 22:05
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Last Salute does a lot of what it's trying to do. The problem is that most of what it's trying to do is a really bad idea. Murder with Too Many Notes is just plain butchered--one of the main clues gets edited out of the story, leading to a whole bunch of moments that make no sense, but there's still enough time for an extended scene showing Columbo doesn't know movie themes. (Same director, so I'm not letting McGoohan off the hook. He does several episodes that are good and several that are terrible.) Last Salute's bad choices fail so badly that the good ones (like having a howcatchem turn into a whodunnit) get completely overwhelmed. But they really did decide they wanted Columbo to start physically doing what he's always done to people verbally, and to play around with the idea that Falk was done with the series, and to make almost every single character profoundly unpleasant. (That last one is a common mystery trope that Columbo usually refuses to engage in.) It plays like an episode of Columbo that wants the cast to be having a good time and doesn't much care about the audience.
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Nov 20, 2023 20:06
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Takes No Damage posted:I had heard that before my latest rewatch, and while it does explain a lot of things it didn't make it any easier to sit through for me. Watching Falk squirm into people's personal spaces like the couch and car scenes were legit funny though. My favorite is the scene where Columbo is having a conversation with loud work happening in the foreground that makes communication nearly impossible. Neither he nor the character he's talking to can really hear, and that's true for us as the audience as well. I was laughing at what was going on and the degree to which it was a literalization of Columbo's technique of irritating the suspect until he gets a breakthrough of some sort. But it's also a profoundly uncomfortable viewing experience. McGoohan is clearly interested in absurdist theater, alienation, and other techniques current during his creation of The Prisoner, and he's deploying these techniques in a Columbo episode. It's the most absurdist the show gets if you ignore the chess dream at the beginning of The Most Dangerous Match. I'm just not sure that what he's trying to do actually produces any coherent insights. The "howcatchem" format of Columbo and the character of Columbo himself are already a substantive deconstruction of the traditional mystery format, so trying to deconstruct Columbo the show is naturally going to create a mess. At the same time, you can see why Falk--bored with the format and thinking of quitting despite his huge paychecks--and McGoohan thought it was a great idea.
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Nov 22, 2023 19:59
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Bread Zeppelin posted:Just watched this episode, holy poo poo lmao. I was hoping to find something about IASP's intent to reference this scene but couldn't find anything. The brilliant thing about that scene is that you're left wondering if Columbo was actually fooled by the vent, or if he's making a sophisticated statement about art that gets completely obfuscated by his bumbling persona.
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Mar 15, 2024 01:46
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