The episode opens (after the summation), and we see Al Drake (Martin Landau!) and Howard (Jeff Conaway) in a tense conversation. Howard wants to get out of a secret shameful deal and is refused. He jogs off and then Drake is threatened (again) by this other dude named Mike. So within the first 3 minutes, we totally know that Drake is a goner. We meet up with JF and her niece, Vicky, at the church. Vicky is planning a small, intimate wedding to Howard, who is late. Howard shows up later to meet JF, but says he must bow out of the proposed dinner (again!) because of work (we learn this is the 5th night in a row of cancelled dinner). JF and Vicky go off to dinner to a seafood restaurant. So JF flies to California to eat lobster flown in daily from Maine? Vicky tells JF that Howard wanted to be an actor but now he works as an insurance salesman to support Vicky, who in turn doesn't care what his job is, she just wants to marry Howard. During dinner, Vicky confides in JF that she (Vicky) thinks Howard is having an affair as evidenced by late nights, matchbooks from a nightclub, and a handkerchief smeared with lipstick (not Vicky's color!).
We shift to Drake's nightclub and find a full house, Drake talking to his secretary Barbara about having no desire to sell the club. Then Patterson (Bart Braverman), a talent agent, sidles up to tell Drake that Patterson will get Freddy York (Gabe Kaplan), a comedian/drummer, out of his terrible contract with Drake, but Drake refuses to let him go! Vicky and JF arrive at Drake's club and are unable to get a table. Vicky attempts to use JF's celebrity to get a table, but that doesn't work; the host doesn't know who she is! However, when Vicky appeals to Drake and reveals that JF has written 6 best sellers and is on a press junket out in San Francisco (JF is not going to waste any time in Cabot Cove, I guess). We then hear Freddy York's terrible act (it is really bad). Mrs. Drake show ups with the most stereotypical evil eyebrows (permanently arched and located half-way up her forehead). The staff goes out of their way to notify Mr. Drake that his wife is here (so you know their marriage is great!). And then the club's drag show starts! Barbara discovers the body of Mr. Drake and then calls out to stop the figure running about. The figure then runs on stage and we discover that it is Howard in a dress! By the way, I have to say the drag queens in this show are not committed at all to their craft. They aren't even trying; RuPaul would not approve!
Vicky is then reunited with Howard and is so relieved that Howard is not cheating. But Howard is then immediately arrested for Drake's murder. While at the scene of the crime, a feather is discovered on Drake's body and is thought to have come from his pet bird. JF (of course) attempts to insert herself in the investigation, but Novack (the lead investigator) is not really interested. She then shows off both impressive knowledge of gun shot residue tests and understanding (for the time) towards Howard and his current employment. Howard explains to JF that Drake would not let him out of the contract and he went to Drake's office to talk to Drake. While in the office, he picked up a gun (smart, get those prints on anything you can!) before discovering that Drake was dead. The police think that they can pinpoint the time of death since the sound of Freddy York's terrible drum act would drown out the sound of the gunfire.
We switch over to a waterside scene between Mrs. Drake and Mike that lets us know that they were having an affair and both aren't sure the other one didn't kill Drake. We head back to the club with JF who is talking with Freddy York in his dressing room and finding a chaise lounge under a window with a great view (one of the few rooms with a window). As JF is leaving, she overhears Mrs. Drake firing Barbara (the secretary). During a shared cab ride, JF extracts a variety of information from Barbara that throws suspicion on both Mrs. Drake and Patterson. And we learn that Mike wanted to buy the club. JF and Novack return to the club to determine if York's act would indeed drown-out the sound of gunfire. While JF is onstage, a set of lights falls to the stage that almost crushes her, forcing Freddy to jump off the stage, injuring his neck. JF later meets Novak at his insanely decorated apartment (which includes ceramic duck and cow busts on the wall and bunch of ferns) to discuss the case and why she thinks that Howard is innocent. She later bails out Howard (and buys him a suit) and reassures him that she is on the case and she will clear him of the charges.
JF meets with Mrs. Drake while she (Mrs. Drake) is golfing and learns that Freddy had indeed ended his contract with Drake. She heads over to the hospital and finds Freddy (wearing an inapproriately short hospital gown) and Patterson celebrating, Patterson speculating that the falling lights were meet to kill Freddy (though Mike and JF are also listed as potentially targets). While returning JF to her hotel (with light construction occuring in the next room), Howard tells Vicky that they should postpone the wedding because he doesn't have a good job (I guess she doesn't either). After attempting to drown out the construction noise with a pillow, JF realizes that the source of the the feather on the Drake's body is due to a pillow being used as a silencer for the gun! That means that the time of death was not fixed to overlap with Freddy's act. When they return to Drake's office, they find that the pillow in the chaise is not missing, but it was missing on the day of the murder (as shown by the crime scene photos that JF has procured, which I think maybe against the law). JF figured out that Freddy could have heard the lights and then just waited until the last moment to jump out of the way. JF accuses Freddy of killing Drake and replacing the damaged pillow with the sun-bleached pillow from his own chaise (he was the only with a window in the dressing room). When reminiscing about his career, Freddy legit says: "I'm the Edison of comedy. I'm Robert Fulton on the drums." because he is the first comedian that does his own rimshots (but not the first one to use the terribly bad jokes that make up his act, I guess). He also claims that Drake broke his spirit and his heart. Freddy staged the falling lights to throw suspicion off himself. We then attend the wedding of Vicky and Howard. At this point we see Vicky with her hair down. Prior to this, any other time that we have seen Vicky, he hair was up in this Gibson girl updo. And based on the amount of hair she had, she would have to be wearing a lot of wigs to get that updo. Howard gets ready to start a career in real estate after their honeymoon (job supplied by JF), but Patterson comes to the church to tell him that he got Howard a job as a day player (2 days a week) on a soap opera, which may be the thing that dates this episode the most!
Show Stats:
Famous Guest Stars: Gabe Kaplan (Welcome Back, Kotter! Your dreams were your ticket out!), Jeff Conaway (Kenickie from Grease and Taxi), Martin Landau (North by Northwest!, Mission Impossible, and Space 1999), Bart Baverman (I only know him from episodes of Match Game, but he was in Vega$, which also starred Robert Ulrich as a PI)
Relative Count: 1 Nephew, 1 Niece
Body location: In a office
Remaining Episode Count: 255
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