It seems like forever since we’ve had one of these: an episode of Columbo that works through all the usual plot beats we know and love, and features a meticulously planned crime, committed by somebody in a position of power. Better still, Patrick McGoohan is back for his third appearance. Columbo got the better of Rumford and Brenner, but how will he fare against defence attorney Oscar Finch, who has his eye on a political role? Columbo has triumphed in the world of politics before, so I wouldn’t bet against him…

The Motive

Finch is helping his old friend Paul Mackey in his quest to become Vice President, but Finch’s past is coming back to haunt him, jeopardising his political ambition to become Attorney General. 20 years before, he enlisted the help of Mackey to pervert the course of justice and help his client Frank Staplin to avoid jail. Now Staplin needs Finch’s help again, and if he doesn’t get it, he’s going to reveal all about Mackey and Finch’s shady past, at the worst possible time for them both.

The Murder

A simple gunshot murder, but made to look like a suicide, with the gun placed in Staplin’s hand and then falling to the floor, which gets his prints on the weapon, and then powder burns on his hand simulated with the use of pre-burnt gunpowder. As for his alibi, that’s supposed to be the easy bit: Mackey has a vested interest in this one, and will claim that he was having a meeting with Finch at the time of the murder.

The Mistakes

The gun falls on top of dried blood, but there’s no blood on the gun, so it’s immediately obvious that the suicide has been staged. Just to reinforce that point, Staplin faxed some jokes to his wife just before he was killed, which would be a very odd thing to do before committing suicide. Columbo eventually pieces together the link between Staplin and Finch, and also finds out that Staplin phoned Finch on the night of the murder. The alibi crumbles when Finch and Mackey’s stories don’t match up, with one of them claiming it wasn’t raining, while Finch had to dry clean his clothes because they got soaked. His car was also covering a dry spot in the car park, but it was the only one, which indicates that Mackey’s claim to have driven there as well has to be a lie. But, as is becoming typical with the 80s/90s iteration of Columbo, none of this matters much because it’s all circumstantial. Columbo needs to place Finch at the scene of the crime. To do so he needs the help of his forensics team, and a bite of cheese turns out to be habitual nibbler Finch’s downfall.

Columbo

Needless to say, the chemistry between killer and detective is electrifying, with McGoohan returning to the show and on absolutely scintillating form. Unusually, though, there is also a secondary battle of wills, between detective and accomplice, which is much less of a feature of the episode but is also compelling to watch. Columbo’s confrontation with Mackey is a highlight of the episode:

“The little house you’ve built’s floating on thin air.”
“That’s right, but it’s a house made entirely of glass, and you’re inside, and you can’t get out. If I were you, I wouldn’t perjure myself for Mr Oscar Finch.”

Just One More Thing

We get a great cards-on-the-table moment, with Columbo accusing Finch of murder in the middle of a crowded party. Apart from the story-specific setting, that’s classic, Columbo-by-numbers writing, but the next bit is where the episode transcends most Columbo offerings, with the Lieutenant setting out all the details of the case to Finch, thoroughly dismantling his alibi, and all the time Finch just calmly and quietly listens, before fighting back. His experience of criminal matters gives him an edge, and he knows that none of it matters if he can’t be proven to be at the scene of the crime. McGoohan’s delivery of the following line is as tasty a morsel as the cheese that seals his fate:

“All you have is a load of unsubstantiated, circumstantial, poppycock.”

The Verdict

To a certain extent, Columbo just gets lucky again, with the help of forensic evidence. It feels slightly unearned, what with all the clues he figures out being largely unhelpful towards putting together a case against Finch that will stand up in court. As Finch says, it’s all “poppycock”, until the slightly anticlimactic cheesy gotcha moment. That’s a fairly typically 80s/90s Columbo problem, from what I’ve seen so far, but it doesn’t matter too much in an episode that feels so much like a return to the glory days of the show. McGoohan is obviously a big part of that, and he’s beyond amazing, but the writer wisely sticks like glue to the plot beats we are used to from the 70s show. Almost all attempts to deviate from the usual format of a Columbo episode have been a failure, with Columbo Cries Wolf last time providing a notable exception to the rule. But if that episode proved that it could be good to do something different with Columbo, Agenda for Murder offers the counter-argument: employ a great actor to play a rich and/or powerful killer, give Columbo a clever crime and/or alibi to solve with dogged determination and attention to the smallest details, and you can’t go far wrong.

“One bite of cheese.”

McGoohan will be back for another bite (probably not of cheese). We’ll be seeing him again, and I can’t wait.   RP

Read next in the Junkyard… Columbo: Rest in Peace, Mrs. Columbo